Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND THE REGIONS

The Secretary of State was asked—

Builders

Mr. John Healey: What plans he has to take action against incompetent and dishonest builders; and if he will make a statement. [78815]

The Minister for London and Construction (Mr. Nick Raynsford): The Government are determined to combat the scourge of cowboy builders, who cause immense misery and serious problems for thousands of consumers and damage the image of the whole construction industry. Our work has taken another major step forward in the last week with the cowboy working group's interim report, which sets out detailed proposals for a practical quality mark and approved-list scheme which was issued for consultation on Friday.

Mr. Healey: I thank my hon. Friend for confirmation of the plans for the quality mark scheme, which was well received by reputable builders to whom I spoke in my constituency over the weekend, and which promises a way to deal with the cowboys who rip people off with overpriced, shoddy and sometimes unsafe work. Will my hon. Friend give a little more detail of how the scheme will encourage the best and root out the worst? If this voluntary scheme fails, will he undertake to legislate?

Mr. Raynsford: My hon. Friend makes an important point. The scheme has been widely welcomed by reputable builders who recognise the damage being done to their reputation by the unscrupulous. The quality mark scheme is based on simple principles: builders who subscribe to it must meet guaranteed standards of quality performance and be subject to proper procedures for complaint handling and to disciplinary procedures, and their work must be underpinned by performance and insurance-backed warranties. That assures customers that when they select a builder with the quality mark, they will get a reputable builder, with proper channels of redress if things go wrong and that they will not fall into the hands of unscrupulous cowboys.

Mr. Eric Pickles: One of the companies in my constituency of which I am particularly proud is Exor Management Services, which has set up the Sinclair vetting directory, which is similar to what the Government are seeking to do. The firm points out that vetting is good only on the day of publication of the list. It suggests that one way to improve the Government scheme would be to introduce continuous vetting, so that someone does not get through the net by being good at just one particular point. Will the Minister agree to his officials meeting my constituent company, as its proposal might avoid duplication and might even save the Government some money?

Mr. Raynsford: The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly fair point. There is a need for continuous monitoring of builders' performance to ensure the integrity of the quality


mark scheme. He is right to say that the views of the industry should be taken into account, which is why the report has been published for consultation. We shall welcome the views of the hon. Gentleman's constituent firm and others during the consultation period, with the aim of getting the scheme as good as it possibly can be when we come to launch it, we hope in the autumn.

Mr. David Chaytor: May I bring to my hon. Friend the Minister's attention the activities of a company operating in my constituency? Formerly known as Midland Coating, it went into liquidation and subsequently reinvented itself as Raincheck. That company also went into liquidation and recently reinvented itself as Sealpoint. Will my hon. Friend assure the House that he will discuss the activities of this and similar phoenix companies with colleagues at the Department of Trade and Industry who are well aware of the problem, with a view to taking action so that companies cannot simply reinvent themselves with a different name and continue their unscrupulous activities?

Mr. Raynsford: We are in close contact with colleagues at the DTI on broader consumer protection issues, including effective measures to be taken against rogue traders. I certainly hope that they will be able to come up with proposals to make it easier to deal with the kind of problems created by the firms to which my hon. Friend refers. The important point about the quality mark scheme is that it will give customers knowledge of reputable firms which meet approved standards; and firms such as those to which my hon. Friend refers will not qualify for the quality mark, so any customers who use them will do so at their own risk.

Mr. Andrew Stunell: The Minister's announcement is certainly welcome, although some eyebrows have been raised over the membership of the cowboy working party. Does he accept that many of the problems are created by door-to-door building salesmen, especially those in the double glazing industry? Will he assure us that such people will be brought within the scope of the working party's examination? Does he accept that if he were to extend the Energy Saving Trust's scheme, which provides help for poor and low-income families to install energy-saving and energy-efficient equipment in their homes, that would cut off that part of the industry, thus providing good value for the Government and reducing CO2 emissions?

Mr. Raynsford: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman should have impugned the integrity of the members of the cowboy working party, which is led in a distinguished way by Tony Merricks and which has produced a report that has received widespread support and encouragement from the construction industry. The hon. Gentleman's proposals are slightly odd, given that we have increased the sums available for the home energy efficiency and home agency schemes the HEES and HIA schemes. However, that does not obviate the need for a proper scheme to ensure that any member of the public who is approached by a door-to-door salesman, or by any other builder or person masquerading as a builder, should be able to gauge whether that person is reputable. The quality mark scheme that we propose to introduce will provide exactly that guarantee.

Rail Transport

2. Mr. Piara S. Khabra: What is his most recent estimate of the amount of goods transported by rail in 1998–99; and if he will make a statement. [78816]

The Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. John Prescott): The Department's figures for the financial year 1997–98—the last full year for which we have figures—show a 12 per cent. growth in freight carried by rail. That growth continues. In the first half of the financial year 1998–99—April 1998 to September 1998–8.9 billion tonne km of freight went by rail compared with 8.3 billion tonne km over the same period in the financial year 1997–98. That shows an extraordinary increase in the growth of rail freight.

Mr. Khabra: I welcome the Minister's reply, but what steps is the Department taking to encourage, where possible, companies to use rail instead of road to transport goods? Does he agree that a reduction in the use of roads will help to improve air quality as well as the environment generally?

Mr. Prescott: It is our intention, as we pointed out in the White Paper on integrated transport, to achieve a sustainable freight system for air, sea, ship, rail and road. We have outlined some of the policies for that. One of the first things that we did was almost to double the amount of freight grants that were available. We have increased that amount again, and it is being fully used. We have also made grants available to freight integration centres and are improving port facilities. All that has led to the increase, and we look to a further one.

Mr. Graham Brady: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the welcome increases in rail freight can continue only if there is continuing public support for such increases? In constituencies such as mine, densely populated residential areas are being badly affected by vibration and noise from particular flows of freight. That is undermining public support for greater use of rail freight, which is very bad. In October, I raised this subject with the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale). Will he undertake to have another look at rail freight going to the Brunner Mond plant in Cheshire?

Mr. Prescott: I always talk to my colleagues about these matters. Any transport matter has environmental consequences, whether it be noise or exhaust emissions. Those are a matter of concern in our comprehensive approach. I am pleased at the growth in rail traffic, which has also occurred through the channel tunnel—much of it due to the changes that we have made in policy. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is due to privatisation."] As for those who shout about privatisation, it was an absolute scandal to give away rail companies and pay £250 million, not for those companies but for their bonus of free travel through the channel tunnel.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Government's


excellent work to encourage the transport of freight by rail will be undermined if Railtrack is not prepared to put money into the pinch-points in the railway system that are holding up the movement of goods? Will he take it on himself to have a short, straightforward, Anglo Saxon conversation with the chief executive of Railtrack about the difference between wish-lists, supported by even more Government money, and investment programmes that could be funded by Railtrack's very large profits?

Mr. Prescott: Investment is indeed the key. There is not sufficient rail capacity to meet the increasing demands of freight. That is why we have ordered a look at the new rail route to take international carriages, and why we have renegotiated arrangements, which collapsed under the previous Administration, for the channel tunnel rail link. I very much agree with my hon. Friend about wish-lists for investment. As she knows, I have appointed a pretty tough Strategic Rail Authority chairman and a new regulator, who I believe will begin to make a difference in Railtrack's approach to delivering its promises.

Mr. Bernard Jenkin: Does the Secretary of State agree that we should be doing everything possible to help Railtrack deliver its £27 billion investment programme, which would be the biggest ever investment programme in the railways and the biggest ever investment by a United Kingdom private company? To that end, would not it be sensible to drop the proposal to divert the subsidy from the train operating companies to Railtrack, which exists only to give the Deputy Prime Minister political leverage that he does not require? Precisely who supports his proposal for changing the subsidy arrangements? Does his new rail supremo, Sir Alastair Morton, whose appointment we very much welcome, support the proposal or, like the rest of the industry, does he think that it is absolutely crazy and will endanger the investment that Railtrack is offering?

Mr. Prescott: It is very difficult to keep up with the Opposition. I read a statement attributed to the hon. Gentleman that he was claiming the idea himself. I was the one who asked the regulator to review the subsidies being given to the franchise operators and to consider whether those subsidies should be given to Railtrack because of the failure to invest in the infrastructure, which my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) mentioned. I made the reference to the regulator and I believe that his report will be out in the next few days.

Mr. Jenkin: Who supports it?

Mr. Prescott: I believe that there is considerable support. If the hon. Gentleman reads the Booz Allen report, commissioned by the regulator, which has been published, he will see that we are the ones who are making common sense about the railway system.

Bus Passes (Pensioners)

Mr. John Grogan: If he will make a statement concerning progress in implementing the policy of making available half-fare bus passes for all pensioners. [78817]

The Minister of Transport (Dr. John Reid): We intend to legislate to make half-fare bus passes available

to all pensioners as soon as parliamentary time permits. It is of course open to individual local authorities to adopt the proposed minimum standard in advance of legislation.

Mr. Grogan: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Does he recognise the urgency of the matter and the priority with which many in rural Britain treat this issue, especially in my constituency, where, for example, in market towns such as Tadcaster and villages such as Sherburn-in-Elmet, pensioners have to make do with only £8 a year of bus tokens—enough for three or four journeys a year—in the knowledge that their neighbours in West Yorkshire, in towns such as Weatherby, have access to concessionary travel at 20p per journey off peak? Is not that fundamentally unfair?

Dr. Reid: I agree with my hon. Friend that any Government committed, as the Government are, to a fairer, more inclusive society would want to ensure that bus travel remains within reach of those with very limited means. That is precisely why we are proposing a guaranteed half-fare scheme for pensioners in England and Wales, with a maximum £5 annual bus pass. I am sure that that, with many other measures that we are taking to increase activity and access and promote growth in the bus passenger market, will be widely welcomed by pensioners in my hon. Friend's constituency and throughout the country.

Mr. Adrian Sanders: Will the Minister accept that half-fare bus travel is not really enoug—that our pensioners should be entitled to travel at half fare by coach, bus, rail, ferry or any mode of transport, and that our pensioners deserve such a comprehensive scheme?

Dr. Reid: That is another penny on the tax, I suppose. Of course, in an ideal world, we would like to make half-fare travel even more extensive, but I think that the hon. Gentleman would be churlish if he did not at least accept that the Government's proposals to extend half-fare bus travel to all pensioners throughout England and Wales represent a major advance on anything that has gone before and will be widely welcomed by pensioners in his constituency and throughout the country.

New Forest

Mr. Desmond Swayne: If he will make a statement about his plans to introduce new legislation affecting the status of the New forest. [78819]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Alan Meale): We are still looking very carefully at all the issues connected with a possible change in status for the New forest. We hope to announce some conclusions soon.

Mr. Swayne: Over the last 30 years, on every issue of conservation against development, one or other of the local authorities has backed the developers only to be thwarted by the verderers, exercising their existing powers under the New Forest Acts. Can the Minister assure me, therefore, that he will not produce proposals setting up a new park authority with statutory powers that could restrain in any way the freedom of action of the verderers court?

Mr. Meale: I assure the hon. Gentleman—as I did in the recent debate in the House, which he initiated—that


full consideration will be given to the verderers' views and that we envisage no likely change in the role that they undertake at present.

Dr. Alan Whitehead: Does the Minister accept that it is quite possible to establish national park status for the New forest, which would be very much welcomed by many people living in the area, without necessarily removing the powers of the verderers under certain circumstances or many of the planning powers of the local authority, and that many people would welcome that way forward for the New forest?

Mr. Meale: I am aware that there is a wide variety of views. Indeed, we have received many hundreds of letters on this subject. There are those who are strongly in favour of national park status and those who are against it in the area concerned.

Mr. Nigel Waterson: Does the Minister agree that in areas such as the New forest and the south downs, it is far better to build on existing structures that have been proved successful rather than listen to noisy minorities that want national park status? When will the hon. Gentleman announce his final decision on these issues?

Mr. Meale: I repeat that that will be soon. We are determined to get the decision-making process right rather than to accommodate one side or the other. The hon. Gentleman might consider the views of the Leader of the Opposition who, when recently interviewed by the Southampton Daily Echo, expressed the view that he had no difficulties with national park status in the two relevant areas which adjoin his constituency.

Freight Costs

Mr. Alan W. Williams: If he will make a statement on the level of freight costs in (a) the UK and (b) other EU member states. [78820]

Mr. Mark Todd: If he will make a statement on road freight costs in (a) the United Kingdom and (b) other EU member states. [78828]

The Minister of Transport (Dr. John Reid): For a typical haulage operator with 50 articulated trucks, if we include social costs, national insurance, corporation tax, labour costs, fuel and excise duty, the additional cost in France. as compared with the UK, is about £425,000 a year; in the Netherlands about £600,000; and in Belgium about £800,000. These issues will be discussed in more detail by the road haulage forum.

Mr. Williams: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that comprehensive reply. Does he agree, bearing in mind yesterday's truckers' protest, that the general public are presented with only one part of the picture? Will he go in considerable detail through the various factors with the road haulage forum and perhaps prepare and present an agreed report eventually so that there is transparency and so that the general public can understand that road haulage costs in Britain are about a third less than those in France, Germany and Italy?

Dr. Reid: Yes, I certainly will. The general public are coming to recognise that when all costs are considered,

the UK haulage industry is more competitive than the majority of its European competitors. There is overcapacity in the industry, and I take that seriously. That is why I am involved in discussions with the road haulage and freight associations on that and other matters.
It is a matter of deep regret that a militant section of the hauliers have rejected the path of dialogue and have opted instead to disrupt, inconvenience and punish millions of ordinary members of the public while discussions are taking place. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House would wish to condemn such destructive action.

Mr. Todd: I certainly thank the Minister for the last part of his reply. I share his view entirely, as I think would my constituents. However, may I ask him three questions on this issue—[HoN. MEMBERS: "No."] I shall do so very quickly. First, my right hon. Friend referred to a 50-truck company. I would be interested—I am sure that the road haulage forum would find it helpful—to explore the position of a smaller company, including its cash flow, as a result of the change in tax status. Secondly, what is the impact on market share over the period in which the increased taxes will be introduced? Thirdly, are there means of measuring the impact on the environment of these taxes so that we can ensure that the outcomes are those that we are seeking?

Dr. Reid: Yes. At great risk of going on at tremendous length, I think that it would be helpful if we considered some of these issues. I can tell my hon. Friend, for instance, that labour costs are higher for our continental neighbours by more than 55 per cent. in France, 95 per cent. in Belgium and 75 per cent. in the Netherlands. Corporation tax for individual firms—my hon. Friend asked specifically about smaller firms—is higher for our continental neighbours. It is 50.65 per cent. higher in France, 40.17 per cent. higher in Belgium and 35 per cent. higher in the Netherlands. I could go on indefinitely, but I undertake to write to my hon. Friend in answer to those three questions as well as any others he wishes to ask.

Mr. Tony Baldry: If what the Minister says is correct, hauliers would be flagging out from France, Germany and the Netherlands and joining the United Kingdom truck industry, but quite the opposite is happening. UK hauliers are flagging out and registering elsewhere because, in the marketplace, the costs are cheaper. He cannot be unaware that independent research, supported by organisations such as the Confederation of British Industry, has shown that about 50,000 jobs will be at risk if the Government maintain these policies. The extra costs will be felt not only in the haulage industry, but throughout the whole of UK plc. Will he work out why UK hauliers are moving away rather than companies from elsewhere in Europe coming to this country?

Dr. Reid: May I correct the hon. Gentleman? The independent research to which he refers was commissioned by the Road Haulage Association; although it may be an honourable organisation, it is hardly independent in the present context. He and his party must be experts on flagging out—they cut their eye teeth on flagging out almost the whole of the British merchant shipping industry. He will be aware, as I am, that the leading exponent of flagging out—to Belize, I think—is the current treasurer of the Tory party.
On interchange of registration, in an increasingly integrated Europe, some British companies will flag out abroad as some companies from abroad will flag out in Britain. The fact is that all the independent assessments, including the most recent one by KPMG, show that, next to Austria, our road haulage industry is the most competitive in Europe.
Finally, as millions of people have again been condemned, punished, inconvenienced and disrupted by the militant action this week, it would be useful if, just for once, a Tory spokesman stood up to back the public and said how much the Tories condemn and regret the action.

Mr. William Ross: The House and the country will no doubt be very interested in the figures given by the Minister, but will he go further and publish in the Official Report all the figures for all the European states, so that we can see what the facts are? Will he understand that those of us from Northern Ireland are particularly interested in the costs vis-à-vis Northern Ireland and the Republic, not least the cost of fuel?

Dr. Reid: I shall continue to publish as many facts as I can on this matter, because the one way to put the case in perspective is to put as many facts as possible before the public. I have to say that the way to solve problems such as this is through dialogue—not through disruption. We are concerned about the overcapacity in the industry and we want to help the hauliers, which is why I am having discussions with the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association, but we will not be held to ransom. I only wish that we had some of the courage shown by Conservative Members in standing up for the general public.

Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours: Will my right hon. Friend ask his officials, or Treasury officials, to dig out the figures that really matter in this whole argument—the transport cost per tonne per kilometre, by road and by rail, in each European country, including the United Kingdom? I believe that those statistics will reveal the truth. Can we have those statistics published? If we cannot, can we have published some indicators that we all understand and which we can use in explanations to the road haulage industry?

Dr. Reid: My hon. Friend makes a good point. As he knows, there are any number of potential indicators and statistics can be used, on either side of an argument, to illustrate the case. I will certainly look at that particular method or at any other simplified way of putting the truth of this matter across to the public.

Mrs. Gillian Shephard: If the right hon. Gentleman would agree this afternoon to commission a new report on the facts and figures surrounding the haulage industry, the Opposition would welcome that. But what the right hon. Gentleman said this afternoon will have been listened to with incredulity by the industry. If the British road haulage industry is in such a favourable and competitive position, why are his policies driving large British haulage companies out of the country and small British haulage companies out of business?

Dr. Reid: I take it that one of the companies to which the right hon. Lady refers is Eddie Stobart, a great British

success story. Eddie Stobart operates a quarter of his lorries on the continent and he is registering them there. However, the right hon. Lady may not know that Eddie Stobart benefits from the DETR rail freight grants. I shall write to her about how many millions of pounds are involved.
We shall continue to discuss all these issues in the road haulage forum, but I notice that the right hon. Lady had not one word of sympathy for the public yesterday. Is it not a shameful hypocrisy that the party which, when in government, introduced, maintained and increased the fuel duty escalator, now attempts to abandon it? Is it not a shameful hypocrisy that the party which says that it is against European tax harmonisation now wants our taxes to be dictated by France and Luxembourg? Is it not a shameful hypocrisy that the party which, for 20 years, has condemned every militant action by every section of British workers, has now become the militants friend because it is too frit to stand up against the militant hauliers?

Concessionary Travel

Mr. Paul Burstow: What plans he has to review the arrangements for concessionary travel in Greater London. [78821]

The Minister for Transport in London (Ms Glenda Jackson): Subject to the passage of the Greater London Authority Bill, provision will be made to continue arrangements, including a reserve free travel scheme which ensures that London's pensioners and eligible disabled persons continue to enjoy the benefits of concessionary travel.

Mr. Burstow: Does the Minister understand that, if just one of London's 33 boroughs refuses to support the concessionary fares scheme, it falls, and, as a consequence, a reserve scheme comes in which costs more, starts later in the day and excludes the use of the railways? Will the Minister, therefore, legislate to ensure that the freedom pass is safeguarded so that, if the worst happens and London's boroughs do not agree among themselves, we can guarantee to Londoners that they will not be the ones to lose out?

Ms Jackson: The whole point of the reserve scheme is that it guarantees a concessionary fares scheme for pensioners and disabled persons. We will, of course, listen to anyone who wishes to improve the present scheme and will react accordingly.

Mr. Neil Gerrard: Does my hon. Friend accept that the present reserve scheme is out of date—I think that it goes back to 1985—and depends on the powers that were put in place on the abolition of the GLC? Will my hon. Friend consider bringing that scheme more up to date so that, if we fail to obtain agreement, we at least have a reserve scheme that matches today's conditions, not those of 1985?

Ms Jackson: The date to which my hon. Friend refers is 1984. As I have already said, we shall listen to anyone who comes forward with improvements to the existing scheme to ensure that pensioners and disabled persons in London can rest assured that their concessionary travel is secure.

Sites of Special Scientific Interest

Mr. David Lepper: When he expects to bring forward measures to implement proposals in the Government's consultation paper, "Sites of Special Scientific Interest—Better Protection and Management". [78822]

The Minister for the Environment (Mr. Michael Meacher): Following the recent conclusion to the consultation exercise, to which we received nearly 600 responses, I hope to be in a position to make an announcement very soon outlining how we intend to proceed.

Mr. Lepper: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the widespread public support for legislation for the greater protection of our wildlife which will be shown this afternoon by 250,000 pledges collected by the Countryside and Wildlife Link which will be presented to hon. Members? Will my right hon. Friend also note that 334 hon. Members have now signed early-day motion 11 in my name in support of such legislation, and agree that a commitment to introduce legislation more securely to protect our wildlife would be welcome? Can my right hon. Friend give a commitment to the early introduction of that legislation?

Mr. Meacher: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his persistent campaigning in support of wildlife protection. I recognise the widespread support in the country for the strengthening of wildlife protection laws. As the House knows, 335 signatories to an early-day motion is a large number and shows strong support from hon. Members. As soon as parliamentary time permits, I intend to introduce legislation to strengthen the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which is now outdated in significant ways.

Mr. Simon Burns: I assure the Minister that we shall look forward to his announcement with great interest, because we believe that the 1981 Act needs to be tightened up and improved. Does he accept that the crown jewels of our wildlife heritage, the SSSIs, are in a desperate state? There have been more than 2,000 cases of damage in the past six years, 46 sites have lost their SSSI status and hundreds more have had part of their designated area depleted. Do the Government accept that there is an urgent need to take quick action to prevent further erosion and damage to these important sites? Can the Minister give the House any reassurance that, before further legislation is introduced and enacted, more will be done under existing rules and regulations to tighten the protection of these important areas?

Mr. Meacher: I agree that, over the years, SSSIs have been significantly damaged. The reasons for that are road building programmes, over-abstraction of water and intensification of agriculture, all of which were significantly increased under the previous Government. We are taking action on all three fronts. Last year, we carried out a review of the roads programme. We are also reviewing existing consents for water abstraction and seeking the time-limiting of all consents. At the negotiations on the common agricultural policy in Brussels and Berlin, we have recently made significant progress on the countryside through the inclusion of the

rural development regulation and cross-compliance on environmental conditions for agricultural grants. Those measures will reduce the damage that was done in the Tory years.

Dr. Nick Palmer: Does my right hon. Friend agree that new legislation in this area is not only desirable in principle, but urgent in practice because of the steady deterioration referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Lepper) and other hon. Members? Does he accept that this subject has excited great public concern beyond the usual groups that routinely write to us?

Mr. Meacher: I accept what my hon. Friend has said. The Government published a consultation paper, "Sites of Special Scientific Interest—Better Protection and Management", last September. The radical policies that it contains were broadly accepted during the consultation process. I repeat that we are seeking the earliest opportunity to introduce a new Bill to give greater protection to SSSIs, which are essential for wildlife.

London Underground

Sir Sydney Chapman: If he will make a statement about the Government's policy on (a) investment in and (b) fares on London underground. [78823]

The Minister for Transport in London (Ms Glenda Jackson): Our policy on investment in London underground is to secure high and stable investment in modernising and maintaining the system. Fares are currently the responsibility of London Transport, but following the establishment of the Greater London Authority, they will become the responsibility of the mayor.

Sir Sydney Chapman: How can the Minister be confident that private investment in the infrastructure of the London underground will be forthcoming, given that the assets created will remain in or return to the public sector? The Transport Sub-Committee has referred to the public-private partnership as a convoluted compromise. Is not the truth of the matter that the PPP will lead to a lack of adequate investment and a continuation of fares rising above the rate of inflation, in contradistinction to the privatised railways whose fares have gone down in real terms since privatisation?

Ms Jackson: No. Private sector interest in our proposals for PPP is very strong. As for fare rises, according to the modelling, fares will rise at a rate conforming to the retail prices index plus 1 in 2000-01, and at RPI plus 0 after 2001. That is in marked contrast to the last decade of the last Administration, during which, despite promises to freeze London Transport fares, they rose by 38 per cent. in real terms.

Mr. Richard Ottaway: Is not the real picture very different? Does the Minister agree that the last Government were investing £700 million a year in the underground, while the present Government are investing £500 million? Does she agree that, while this Government's PPP will raise £7 billion over 15 years,


the last Government spent that in 10 years? Does she agree that, while the private railways are experiencing rising investment and falling fares, the underground is experiencing falling investment and rising fares, and that, after decades of expansion, no new lines are planned? What on earth has happened to the Labour party's manifesto pledge to improve the London underground?

Ms Jackson: The last Administration reduced core investment in the London underground year on year. Their only solution to the problems was to wash their hands of the underground by promoting a privatisation that would have reduced the existing network by at least a third, and which received the big thumbs-down from Londoners. Our proposal for public-private investment has been welcomed, and will provide enough investment to ensure that our underground is of a quality fit not only for the people of London, but for the 21st century.

Rural Bus Services

Mr. Gareth Thomas: If he will make a statement on rural bus services. [78824]

The Minister of Transport (Dr. John Reid): Rural areas throughout Great Britain now have new or improved bus services as a result of the new money for rural transport announced in each of the last two Budgets. A total of £150 million over three years was provided for rural transport in last year's Budget, and that was increased by over £20 million in this year's Budget.

Mr. Thomas: That announcement is particularly welcome in the light of the Conservative party's mismanagement of rural transport.
First, does my right hon. Friend agree that, when public money is spent on matters such as rural transport, effective consultation is essential if services are to meet needs? That is certainly my experience in north Wales. Secondly, can my right hon. Friend give us some details of improvements in rural bus services?

Dr. Reid: I agree that consultation is essential. Indeed, local authorities, especially those that are taking the integration of transport and the provision of transport services for those in their areas seriously—the vast majority of which are Labour authorities—are an essential part of an integrated transport policy.
My hon. Friend asked what effect the grants had had. So far, 55 replies have been received to 73 questionnaires in an initial survey of English local authorities. They show that there are 578 new services, while the frequency or coverage of a further 744 has improved. That is a result of the extra money provided by a Labour Government. Furthermore, the £2.25 million allocated in 1998–99 under the Welsh rural bus subsidy grant scheme?—including £76,000 for Conwy and £91,000 for Denbighshire, both of which are in my hon. Friend's constituency—has resulted in improved and additional services.

Mr. Nigel Evans: Many villages in my rural constituency will suffer further strain because of the lack of provision of places in schools. In Clitheroe, for instance, many youngsters will have to be bussed miles

out of their area to attend neighbouring schools. Has the Minister had any discussions with the Department for Education and Employment to ensure that there is better planning in regard to school places, so that youngsters need not travel on buses for many hours and many miles in the morning just to receive a decent education?

Dr. Reid: We are, of course, grappling with our inheritance from the hon. Gentleman's party. However, we have not only discussed the matter with the Department for Education and Employment, but formed the school travel advisory group, which is examining it closely.
We are not always helped by Conservative councils throughout the country. For example, only in the past few days, in Norfolk county council—which I believe is the council that covers the area that is represented by the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard)—there was a move to introduce 10 additional double-decker buses to moderate the market for school travel. Unfortunately, that was opposed by the Conservative group on the council. Thankfully, a combination of Labour and Liberal councillors managed to secure that service for local pupils and their parents.

North-East Regional Chamber

Mr. Stephen Hepburn: When the regional chamber in the north-east will be officially established. [78825]

The Minister for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning (Mr. Richard Caborn): We are considering proposals from the north-east regional chamber for designation as the regional chamber for the north-east under the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998. I hope to make an announcement shortly.

Mr. Hepburn: I thank the Minister for that helpful reply, but is he aware that business people and some council leaders in the north-east see themselves at a distinct disadvantage compared with their Scottish counterparts, who will possibly have the advantage of a Scottish Parliament to champion their cause in terms of job creation and economic prosperity? How will the establishment of a regional chamber in the north-ea0st alleviate those concerns?

Mr. Caborn: I am sure that my hon. Friend knows that, only 10 days ago, we set up the regional development agencies; they are now in operation. As I have said, the regional chambers will be designated. As part of our total devolution package, we are managing that change very carefully and with the consent of the people. I have no doubt that, some time in the future, the north-east, like every other region, will have the opportunity to decide whether it wants a directly elected regional assembly. That will be done with the consent of the people in the various regions. Indeed, we have managed the devolution package for the United Kingdom in that way.

Rail Summits

Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: What plans he has to hold regular rail summits with the rail operators. [78826]

The Minister of Transport (Dr. John Reid): The February rail summit was a major step towards driving up


the quality of rail services throughout the country. We want and deserve year-on-year improvements in rail performance. We will hold a second summit next spring to review progress and to maintain the momentum.

Mr. Mackinlay: Does not the publication today of the independent report to the Rail Regulator give credence to the view of the fare-paying public that Railtrack and the franchise operators are both the same and both to blame for under-investment at a time when they are maximising profits? At a future rail summit, will my right hon. Friend make it clear to both Railtrack and the franchise operators that the profits of Railtrack cannot be shifted to the franchisees when there is a review of access charges? There needs to be discipline in investing in Railtrack—the infrastructure—and a proper service needs to be provided by the rail franchise operators. If not, the Government will need to act.

Dr. Reid: We are scrutinising today's report carefully. We have made it clear that we support the then regulator's view that not sufficient of the surplus that was generated by Railtrack was going into investment. My hon. Friend can be assured that the Deputy Prime Minister and I will, in future, as we have in the past, insist that the public get the sort of investment from Railtrack that they should be getting to improve railway services.

Mr. Nick Hawkins: Will the Minister confirm that, in 1997–98, Railtrack invested an extra £1.25 billion—an increase of 69 per cent. over the last year before flotation—and that, in the current financial year, a further 16 per cent. increase is planned? While he is on his feet confirming those facts—and the fact that the only thing that has saved the railways is a channel tunnel that was built by the private sector under a Conservative Government and with the involvement of private sector investment—will he have a word with the Minister for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning? Can he explain why, although his ministerial colleague promised at the previous DETR Question Time to write to me, despite three chasing calls from my office to his private office, I have yet to have a response on an urgent matter involving my constituents? Is that not disgraceful?

Dr. Reid: I would rather not comment on the hon. Gentleman's private telephone calls. On investment, I can confirm that the previous regulator took the view that the figures that were being invested by Railtrack were insufficient. He is an independent regulator. I can confirm the figure—which the hon. Gentleman gave—of £1.25 billion for the year before last. I can also confirm that only slightly less than that figure was lost to the public by the Conservatives, who sold off Railtrack cheaply.

Joan Ruddock: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the problem in my constituency, where Connex South Eastern has been locking out disabled passengers from access to the level platforms by closing side gates, for security reasons? Does he accept that far too many rail companies are disabling their potential passengers by such actions? Will he ensure that a future rail summit will raise that issue, and have on its agenda compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995?

Dr. Reid: Yes.

Manchester International Airport

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: If he will make a statement on road links to Manchester International airport. [78829]

The Minister for Transport in London (Ms Glenda Jackson): We propose to begin a multi-modal study in spring, assessing the transport problems around Manchester airport and the area to the south-east of Manchester.

Mr. Winterton: Will the Minister tell us whether she is aware that support for the second runway at Manchester airport was given because it was indicated by Government that the appropriate infrastructure to serve the airport, not least the road infrastructure, which includes the Macclesfield to Poynton road improvement, the MAELR road—the Manchester airport eastern link road—and the Poynton bypass, would proceed in a priority programme? Will the Minister come to my constituency to see the increasing devastation arising from increased traffic anticipating the second runway at Manchester airport, so that my constituents are aware that this Government are prepared to take responsibility for a decision that a Government of this country took, and will not allow the environment of the villages of Poynton, Mottram St. Andrew and Prestbury to be eroded, as is happening now?

Ms Jackson: I should dearly love to visit the hon. Gentleman's constituency, but think that it is highly unlikely that I shall have the time to do so in the immediate future. He spoke of the "appropriate infrastructure", which is precisely what the Government are committed to discovering. We must get away from the idea—the previous Administration were beginning to move away from it—that the only appropriate form of infrastructure is exclusively that which is solely dependent on roads. That is not sustainable, either economically or environmentally.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Does my hon. Friend accept that far too many people still have to approach Manchester airport—particularly those who work there—by private car, and that it would be far better if the Government could give priority to getting the tramway system, which is doing so well in Greater Manchester, extended to the airport?

Ms Jackson: The Metrolink issue has been raised by the Greater Manchester passenger transport authority with both my right hon. Friends and me. We are perfectly willing to listen to the authority's arguments on the matter. The responsibility for the matter is the authority's, and dealing with it must be part and parcel of its local integrated transport plans.

Mr. Stephen Day: Is the Minister aware—from her comments to my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), I take it that she is not—that a third of the Manchester airport eastern link road and the Poynton bypass already exists, but that it does not join the airport and does not go anywhere in the east? I hardly think that it is asking a lot of the Minister to consider coming to my hon. Friend's constituency and to Cheadle to see for herself that that road, which is very much a


reality in the centre, should be connected to those parts of the infrastructure in the north-west that it was intended originally to serve.

Ms Jackson: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not take the opportunity to apologise for the previous Administration, who have clearly left a third of a road going absolutely nowhere. As I told the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), we shall start a multi-modal study in the spring.

Buses

Mr. David Crausby: If he will make a statement on the latest data on the number of people using buses. [78830]

The Minister of Transport (Dr. John Reid): The latest figures published by my Department show an overall increase of 1 per cent. in passenger journeys on buses in England in 1997-98. That marks the first reversal of a 50-year decline in bus use.

Mr. Crausby: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that the thoughtless privatisation of bus services was a disaster? What plans does he have to encourage the greater use of bus services in preference to the private car?

Dr. Reid: Yes. We have been working actively with local authorities and bus operators through the quality partnerships, and we intend to legislate to introduce quality contracts if necessary. The extra money that we have provided for buses, to compensate for the fuel duty escalator, is a topic of some interest, especially in rural areas. Our efforts have resulted in the historic reversal in the trend that I have already mentioned. Given the long-term trend of decline, the latest patronage figures for 1997-98 are encouraging. We have halted that decline, and passenger journeys in London are up by no less than 4 per cent., and in the west midlands by 5 per cent., compared with the previous year. That is another area in which, after 20 years of the Conservative Government, we are bringing about historic shifts in transport patterns.

Mr. John Bercow: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's encouragement of bus transport, will he tell the House how many times he has travelled to ministerial engagements by bus since he assumed his present post?

Dr. Reid: I have travelled by bus, and by tube, on several occasions. Unlike some previous Conservative Ministers, I do not find people who travel by public transport so despicable that I avoid it.

Alternative Fuels

Mr. Gordon Prentice: What steps he is taking to encourage the manufacture of compressed natural gas vehicles and the conversion of existing petrol and diesel vehicles to alternative fuels. [78831]

The Minister for Transport in London (Ms Glenda Jackson): The Energy Saving Trust's powershift programme, funded by my Department, contributes towards the additional cost of purchasing gas and electric vehicles. In the recent Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor reduced duty on compressed natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas by 29 per cent.—a strong incentive to convert to those fuels.

Mr. Prentice: That was a good answer; we must all celebrate the 29 per cent. cut in fuel duty for gas vehicles in the Budget. However, is it not true that we will never get people to convert their vehicles until there are pumps in filling stations to allow them to fill up their tanks with compressed natural gas? What are the Government doing actively to encourage filling stations to put compressed natural gas pumps on their forecourts?

Ms Jackson: My hon. Friend is right; there is certainly a need for further improvements in the refuelling infrastructure. However, there are signs that fuel suppliers now have the confidence to invest significantly in gas refuelling facilities, and the recent Budget announcements should provide further impetus for their plans.

Local Government Finance

Sir Teddy Taylor: What has been the average rate of increase in percentage terms in the allowable spending of local councils over the past five years; and what is the figure for Rochford. [78832]

The Minister for Local Government and Housing (Ms Hilary Armstrong): The average allowable increase in the spending of local councils in England over the past five years was 2.7 per cent. For Rochford, it was 2.8 per cent. This year, the Government have not set spending limits for individual authorities.

Sir Teddy Taylor: As the Minister is aware, Rochford is an area with high unemployment and many social problems, and needs investment—but is she also aware that since the Government came to power, the council has been concerned about the financial nightmare that it has had to face? Is she willing to reconsider the situation in Rochford and tell us in what way grants for the area were increased this year? According to the information given to me, they have not been increased, but fell in real terms.

Ms Armstrong: The hon. Gentleman will know that the sums that the Government have provided for local government this year are higher than for the past seven years. His local council, which covers Rochford, has not had a spending limit imposed this year. It has increased its budget by 2.8 per cent. Council tax rises are substantially higher in Tory authorities than in Labour authorities. I invite the hon. Gentleman to help us to get the best value from local government by ensuring that authorities use the increased money that they are getting from the Government this year effectively for local people.

Kosovo

The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): I would like, with your permission, Madam Speaker, to bring the House fully up to date with events in Kosovo. There will be a debate in the House early next week.
NATO's actions continue. Our targets include the Serbian air defence system, the command and control centres of the Yugoslav army and special police forces, the lines of communication that Milosevic uses to resupply his forces in Kosovo, his fuel supplies and, increasingly, the Serb forces on the ground engaged in ethnic cleansing. The armed forces of 13 allies are taking a direct part in the NATO action. I am proud of the full role being played by the men and women of the British armed forces. They have the thanks of the whole House.
Our aims are clear. They were set out again at the meeting yesterday of NATO Foreign Ministers. They are: a verifiable end to all Serb military action and the immediate ending of violence and repression; the withdrawal from Kosovo of Milosevic's military, police and paramilitary forces; agreement to the stationing in Kosovo of an international military force; the unconditional and safe return of all refugees and displaced persons and unhindered access to them by humanitarian aid organisations; and credible assurance of willingness to work on the basis of the Rambouillet accords in the establishment of a political framework agreement for Kosovo in conformity with international law and the charter of the United Nations.
Once we have succeeded militarily we need to negotiate a political settlement based on the Rambouillet agreement. It must be a settlement that brings lasting peace to the entire region. Our action will continue until those aims are met.
There is no longer any serious doubt that the warnings that we gave about Milosevic and his intentions were fully justified. Half a million Kosovar Albanians have fled or been driven out of Kosovo into the neighbouring territories of Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro. In no small measure due to British efforts, those who sought refuge in neighbouring countries are now being looked after and have at least found shelter, food and safety.
I would like to pay tribute to the British troops in Macedonia who built a camp for some 30,000 people inside 48 hours; to the sterling work of my right hon Friend the Secretary of State for International Development in persuading the Macedonian Government fully to open the border; to British non-governmental organisations for their rapid response in getting relief through to the0 refugees; and to the tremendous generosity of the British people, who have already given some £10 million to the Kosovo appeal and added substantially to the £23 million committed so far by the Government. I should like also to commend the Albanian Government, who have been unstinting in providing a welcome to those fleeing from Kosovo.
Our concern is now for those still inside Kosovo. Milosevic's forces continue their ethnic cleansing, but at a reduced level. As a result of NATO action to date, the pace has significantly diminished. His tanks have to conceal themselves from NATO aircraft. His fuel supplies are running low. Some estimate that, taking into account all those displaced over several months, half a million or

so Kosovar Albanians have been driven from their homes but remain within the province. Many have sought refuge in the hills and forests of Kosovo. We are looking urgently at all the options to assist them. Let me say this clearly: Milosevic is responsible for the welfare of those people. When we go into Kosovo finally, he will be held responsible for what we find.
Let me deal with some of the wider strategic issues. Some say that NATO should never have acted at all; some say, too soon; some say, not enough. However inconsistent those points, they all deserve an answer. Milosevic's action in Kosovo—the murder, rape and terror that he has visited on innocent people—provides ample justification for military action.
To those who wanted still more negotiation, I say that we struggled for a year to find a solution for Kosovo by peaceful means, despite Milosevic's brutality on the ground. We intervened only when the diplomatic avenue was exhausted, and when the hideous policy of ethnic cleansing was under way. Make no mistake: the brutality was planned well in advance. Even as the Rambouillet talks were continuing, Serb troops were massing in Kosovo and a new offensive was getting under way, with 40,000 troops and 300 tanks assembled. We now know that Belgrade was making detailed plans for ethnic cleansing as early as February.
Five days before NATO dropped a single bomb, Serb forces began a massive new offensive aimed at clearing Kosovo of its ethnic Albanian majority, wiping out their political class and even destroying evidence that Albanians had ever lived there.
To those who say that we should put in ground forces now, as part of a land force invasion of Kosovo, I repeat that the difficulties of such an undertaking, in the face of organised Serb resistance, are formidable. In the present circumstances, the potential loss of life among our service men and women, to say nothing of civilians, would be considerable, and in any event, assembling such a force would take weeks.
Every day, however, by air power, we are causing further damage to Milosevic's military machine: his air defence system is seriously degraded; half his front-line air force is now unusable; the roads and railways supplying his forces in Kosovo are largely cut; fuel is now in short supply, hampering the movement of his tanks and trucks; and artillery and troops on the ground are now being targeted and hit.
We make every effort to avoid civilian casualties, though some casualties will be inevitable in such action, and our attitude stands in sharp contrast to the utter lack of scruple of Milosevic towards the civilian population in Kosovo.
Britain and our forces can be proud of the role that we have played, in both the military campaign and the humanitarian effort. Day and night, our pilots are risking their lives to inflict defeat on Milosevic and our forces are working to help to alleviate the misery of the refugees driven from their homes and their homeland by his policy of ethnic cleansing; and day and night we are also preparing for the job that we have to do when our military objectives are met.
Today I can announce that we are sending substantial reinforcements for that purpose, with a second armoured battle group. At the moment, the British Army contingent in Greece and Macedonia consists of just over 4,500


military personnel. The remainder of HQ 4 Armoured Brigade and supporting elements are now being sent to the region—all are currently based at their home locations in the United Kingdom and Germany—taking the total number of UK military personnel in Greece and Macedonia to more than 6,300.
Let me make it clear, for the avoidance of doubt, that those personnel are being sent so that the UK can be in a position to play our proper role in the international effort to ensure that the refugees are able to return to Kosovo in safety.
As I said in my first statement to the House, this action will take time. Dictators such as Milosevic do not bow down at the first setback to their plans, but as the weather improves, his forces have fewer hiding places. When new weapons systems are available, such as the attack helicopters, no Serb unit in Kosovo will be able to destroy a village with confidence that it will not be challenged by more powerful forces.
We continue with diplomacy to back up our military action. Tomorrow in Brussels, I shall meet with my colleagues on the European Council and this meeting is being brought forward to include a session with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The NATO Alliance has a long-planned summit in Washington at the end of next week. I and my colleagues will continue to remain in close touch with our Russian counterparts, who will have an important role to play when Milosevic is brought to meet NATO's requirements.
As for NATO, we must remain united and resolute. There can be no compromise on the terms we have set out. They must be met in full. We shall continue until they are. Ethnic cleansing must be defeated, and seen to be defeated. Milosevic's policies in Kosovo must be defeated, and seen to be defeated. I believe that we have a clear strategic interest in peace in the Balkans, but this is now military action for a moral purpose as much as a strategic interest. The barbarity perpetrated against innocent civilians in Kosovo, simply on the ground of their ethnic identity, cannot be allowed to succeed.
The conflict we now face in Kosovo is a test of our commitment and our resolve to ensure that the 21st century does not begin with a continuing reminder in Europe of the worst aspects of the century now drawing to a close. I urge the House to continue to give its unfailing support to the men and women of our armed forces and to the values they are striving to uphold on behalf of us all.

Mr. William Hague: We should never forget that in order to achieve peace and security in Kosovo, British service men now risk their lives every day. We should salute their courage and we join the Prime Minister in doing so. On the basis of the Government's assurances about the military situation and what could be achieved, the air strikes have been supported by the Opposition and, three weeks later, we continue to give our support. The Prime Minister will no doubt agree that for the campaign to be successful the strategy must be clear and consistent. I wish to ask him three sets of questions about how we will now proceed.
First, do the objectives of the action remain those that were set out at the start of the campaign? The Prime Minister said in his statement that the Rambouillet accords are still being treated as the basis for a political settlement. Does he believe that the Kosovar Albanians

will now require something more than the degree of autonomy set out in those accords if they are to agree to return to their homes? Following this morning's meeting, can the Prime Minister set out in more detail the role that he sees Russia playing both in helping to reach a settlement and in enforcing it? Is it still his view that a peacekeeping force must be a NATO force? The Prime Minister has rightly described President Milosevic as a dictator and spoken of the need for war crimes investigations. How does he view the likelihood of us now being able to negotiate a political settlement with Milosevic?
Secondly, there is the central issue of the Kosovar Albanians. What information does the Prime Minister have on the fate of those who have not crossed the border and, in particular, about the terrible reports of massacres of young Kosovar men and systematic rape of Kosovar women by Serbian forces? What steps is NATO taking to break through the wall of propaganda and to ensure that the Serbian people are made fully aware of the atrocities being conducted by Milosevic and his thugs? The aid agency workers, many of them volunteers, are doing a fantastic job. Can the Prime Minister confirm that it is Government policy, wherever possible, to support the refugees in the region—as they themselves wish—rather than to move them to other parts of Europe? Does he agree that Macedonia needs more assistance, bearing in mind the large number of refugees who remain there and the implications that may have for its stability?
Thirdly, the announcement by the Prime Minister on the deployment of 1,800 more British troops puts the issue of ground forces into even sharper focus. He has said that there was no question of committing ground troops to an invasion of Kosovo in advance of a political settlement. More recently, he stated that he is keeping all options under review. Was the second of those statements intended in any way to modify the first?
Can the Prime Minister give the House any information about reports in the past hour that Serbs have attacked two villages in Albania and abducted three Albanians? Can he make it clear that, if such an incursion were confirmed, it would be treated with the utmost seriousness on both sides of the House?
As the Prime Minister has said, it is vital that this campaign is successful: it is vital for NATO and for the stability of the Balkans but, above all, it is vital for the Kosovar people.

The Prime Minister: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support, and I shall answer the questions that he has set out.
The objectives remain exactly the same as NATO set them out. In respect of a political accord based on Rambouillet, as I have made clear, the present situation obviously changes the degree of trust—if there ever could be any trust—that the Kosovar Albanian people feel towards Milosevic.
However, it is still important that we understand that the basis of an agreement is as set out at Rambouillet.
I hope that Russia's role will be to play a part in bringing Milosevic to the terms set out by NATO. We have kept in very close contact with our Russian counterparts in the past few weeks: my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has been in touch with his counterpart; I have had conversations with Prime Minister
Primakov and I have been in touch with President Yeltsin. We are well aware of the need to emphasise to the Russians that we have no quarrel with them, but that the objectives that we have set out must be secured. In our view, the force that goes in must be NATO led. As has been made clear throughout, of course we want to ensure that that international force is allowed to guide people back into their homes in Kosovo, but its core must be NATO led. As for Milosevic himself, I do not think that it is a question of negotiating a settlement, but of him meeting the terms that NATO has set out. There will be no compromise over those terms; they will be secured in full.
In respect of information on the fate of the Kosovar Albanians, we obviously try to obtain the best intelligence as to what is happening inside Kosovo at the moment. In a sense, our concern has shifted. During the first period of time, our concern was for those people flooding across the border and how we could make provision for them. Our concern is now for those displaced inside Kosovo. As I indicated in my statement, we are examining every option for getting help to them. The most important thing is for us to make it very clear to Milosevic, to his generals and to people on the ground that they will be held responsible for anything that they are doing inside Kosovo.
As for breaking through the wall of propaganda, I agree that it would be good if we could do so. However, the media in Serbia are state run and there is no proper news service for people inside Serbia; they are given a wholly one-sided account of what is happening. I believe that many Serbian people would be utterly disgusted if they knew what was being done in their name to innocent ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman says about the refugees in the region. Macedonia is being given as much assistance as possible, as are Montenegro and Albania. They all need assistance and they all need to know that the international community is behind them in the efforts that they are rightly making to deal with the refugees.
In respect of ground forces, the situation remains the same as it has done from the beginning.
The right hon. Gentleman's final point was about the report—I think that it surfaced at lunch time—about Serb forces going into the border region of Albania. We are trying to get correct information, but my understanding is that there was an incursion into one village that was driven out by Albanian forces. It is another border incident and such incidents have been continuing for some time, but the warning given by NATO yesterday in respect of any attempt to invade the integrity of neighbouring areas remains the same, and our commitment to see it through also remains the same.

Mr. Paddy Ashdown: I am grateful to the Prime Minister for his statement. As he knows, NATO has received steady and unwavering support from those on the Liberal Democrat Benches and will continue to do so.
The Prime Minister has said that President Milosevic is hurting. I imagine that he is, although I am bound to say that I have not yet seen any evidence that he has been

forced to do something that he did not intend to do. I say that not because I believe that that situation will continue, but because we have not yet forced him to take such actions. Is it not the case that these operations still have a long way to go and that there will be setbacks, inevitably including casualties, among them no doubt unintended civilian casualties? As we regard those with deep regret, is it not proper that we should nevertheless remember that NATO is not targeting civilians, President Milosevic is? Is it not true that President Milosevic has, over the past year, systematically and brutally used the weapons of state and one of the most powerful armies in Europe to brutalise, rape and murder, and to remove Kosovar Albanians from their homes? Is it not correct to say that three quarters of Kosovar Albanians are homeless, and perhaps 700,000 at President Milosevic's mercy in the forests of Kosovo? Will the Prime Minister give an undertaking that NATO will do everything practical to assist those desperate people?
May I raise three specific points? First, we surely cannot expect Kosovo to remain under Serbian rule. That would be morally repugnant and practically impossible.
Secondly, while it would of course be better to send in ground troops with agreement, will the Prime Minister assure us that President Milosevic cannot have a veto on whether or not we send in ground troops? To give the ethnic cleanser a veto over whether those who have been ethnic cleansed may return would be totally unacceptable.
Thirdly, will the Prime Minister tell us what exactly is meant by a phrase being used by the Ministry of Defence, that ground troops may be used in a "permissive environment"? Does that mean when the risks are permissible? Or does it mean when President Milosevic permits? If it means the former, it is perfectly understandable. If it means the latter, it is intolerable.

The Prime Minister: First, on the air strike campaign against Milosevic, we must be aware of two risks—overstating the case and understating it. It is true that we have not yet secured our objectives. That is why the action continues, and it will continue until we do achieve them.
It would be a severe mistake, however, to say that no damage is being done to Milosevic, or that he is not hurting as a result of the campaign. Enormous damage is being done: half his aircraft are unusable, his fuel supplies are extremely low, a huge range of targets has been hit all over Serbia and Kosovo, and his lines of communication and supply are largely down. We are able, particularly as the weather clears, directly to target his troops on the ground. British forces have been part of the sorties that have been successful in that regard.
We must be persistent and patient if we are to see this through, and we have those qualities. I agree with what the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) said about civilians: we will do everything that we can for people inside Kosovo, consistent with the effectiveness of our action.
The right hon. Gentleman asked three specific questions. On the status of Kosovo, I have said what I have said, and people will understand how much more difficult the position becomes as the world sees exactly what has happened to the ethnic Albanian people in Kosovo. It is important to recognise that Rambouillet sorted a lot of potential problems about how a long-term settlement would work. We are carefully considering how


that could fit into an overall settlement of stability and peace in the Balkan region. All those matters are being considered in detail.
On ground forces, there is no question of Milosevic having a veto. He has no veto over what we do. However, there is a difference between a land force invasion meeting organised resistance in highly difficult circumstances and a force that goes in to allow people to return to their homes in Kosovo.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me finally about the circumstances in which we use ground forces. I have set out those circumstances clearly. However, sometimes, when I read our newspapers, I fear people may think that all the options are not constantly considered, reviewed and worked on. They are worked on all the time. We have advanced our plans and proposals because we believe that they are the best way forward and the most secure way in which to achieve our objectives.
It is not possible for us—nor should it be expected of us—to go into every last detail of military tactics, strategy and capability when we are trying to conduct a campaign. I am standing in the House of Commons to answer questions, and I hope to give as much information as I possibly can. In Belgrade, there is no Parliament in which Milosevic is being questioned. He is giving no television interviews, and no interviewers are putting questions to his generals about how to proceed. That is one of the great differences between a democracy and a dictatorship, and long may it remain so. Without in any way taking away from what I have already said—I have set out clearly our position on ground forces—it is important that it is recognised that we have considered all the right options, and I genuinely believe that the strategy that we are pursuing is the right strategy for us and for the Kosovar Albanians.

Mr. Donald Anderson: Our own forces and those of our NATO allies deserve our full support. My right hon. Friend has properly said that it would take several weeks before a credible ground force could be assembled. Could he tell the House what is the current state of debate within NATO on training and arming the Kosovo Liberation Army, which knows the terrain and which, in the interim, could harry the Serb forces?

The Prime Minister: Our position on training and arming the KLA remains as it has been—we are not in favour of doing so, not least because of the UN embargo that is in place. We have no plans to change that.

Mr. Tom King: Does the Prime Minister recall saying in his statement that the action will continue? I am sure that almost all hon. Members recognise that it is likely to be quite a long haul. During that long haul, we shall need bases and secure lines of supply. In that context, may I reinforce the comments made about the critical importance of Macedonia and Albania? It now appears that Hungary is moving into the front line as the newest member of NATO, finding itself as a possible supply route to avoid the sanctions which are leading to shortages of fuel and other things. These countries will become absolutely critical if our forces and bases and our ability to provide humanitarian help are to continue.
In connection with the Russian situation, while the Prime Minister pointed out the difficulties of combating Milosevic's propaganda, I do not believe that the Russian

people have any sympathy for fascism, fascist brutality and ethnic cleansing on this scale. Not propaganda but getting the truth across as widely as we can through a number of countries which are in a position to help in this respect is equally critical.

The Prime Minister: I agree with both those points, and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support. In relation to the bases of supply and communication, we are taking precisely the action that he outlined. What he says about Russia is correct. The Russian people fought in the second world war against the forces of fascism and racism. It is important, as we try to do all the time, to bring home to them and, indeed, so far as we can, to the Serbian people, the fact that our quarrel is not with them, but with the dictator who is carrying out a policy that all decent people, whether Russian, Serbian or of any other nationality, should abhor.

Mr. Tony Benn: If the air war goes on for weeks, months and even longer, with all the death and destruction that it causes, what contribution does the Prime Minister think that it will make to long-term peace and stability in the Balkans?

The Prime Minister: First, the death and destruction is being wrought by Milosevic on innocent Kosovar Albanian people. He is the person who began this policy of ethnic cleansing; we are trying to put a stop to it. My right hon. Friend asks me what contribution we will make. The contribution that we will make is to stop it. That is something that I would have hoped he would support.

Sir John Stanley: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that any partition of Kosovo would be a wholly unacceptable outcome of the barbaric ethnic cleansing that is taking place?

The Prime Minister: I agree with that entirely.

Mr. David Winnick: Is it not of interest that when the refugees, many of whom have been terrorised out of their homes, are questioned, they put no blame on the NATO bombing, but blame those who are responsible—the murderers and rapists ordered by Milosevic and his fellow criminals? Is it not also of interest that when people in Serbia itself—in Belgrade and other cities and towns—are asked by British journalists about what is happening in Kosovo, they either do not know or deny the ethnic cleansing, which was the very reason for NATO's intervention in the first place? Does not that illustrate the fact that those people are being kept in the dark by the state-controlled television and media in Serbia?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is entirely right. The refugees who have gone over the border and those—in so far as we can communicate with them—who are still inside Kosovo have made it quite clear to us that they support the NATO campaign, want it to go on and, indeed, want it to intensify because they know that that is their only chance of returning to their homes in peace.
What my hon. Friend says about people in Serbia is of course right. We can give anyone who wishes copies of the read-out of the Serbian 90-minute evening news bulletins, but they will bear absolutely no relationship to anything that is happening in Kosovo.

Mr. Martin Bell: It is clear that we are in the presence of the greatest war crimes in Europe for more
than half a century—genocide, ethnic cleansing, forced marches and the mass expulsion of people from their homes—yet we continue to respond with air power, and air power alone. I wonder whether the Prime Minister can give a single example of air power alone achieving a decisive military objective. Is it not true that circumstances on the ground can be changed only by boots on the ground? Do we not have a moral as well as a military imperative to go for a ground intervention—whether opposed or unopposed?

The Prime Minister: On the air campaign, I refer the hon. Gentleman to what happened in Bosnia some years ago. I simply ask people who say that we should put in ground forces now to reflect on what an undertaking that is. We are taking the action that we are taking because we genuinely believe that it is in the interests of the Kosovar Albanian people, as well as the right course for our military.

Mr. Nigel Griffiths: I have just returned from visiting two refugee camps in Macedonia. The people to whom I spoke want one thing and one thing only: to return to their own homes. They tell me that NATO is the only organisation that can make that possible. They are unstinting in their praise of our military and aid workers, and of the generosity of the British people. Will my right hon. Friend ignore the bad advice of the leader of the Scottish National party and others, and keep up the pressure on the murderous Milosevic regime?

The Prime Minister: We certainly will keep up the pressure. My hon. Friend confirms exactly our understanding of the position of the refugees. What they really want is to get back over the border in safety to the homes and villages that they left. We shall make sure that they do.

Mr. Ian Taylor (Esher and Walton): The Prime Minister is right to stress that the presence of ground forces in the theatre would be very important, even if they ultimately enter permissively, and that a military solution must be led by NATO, otherwise the protection of the Kosovars will not be credible. Will he go a little further and explain what political initiatives he is taking to look for longer-term stability in the region? It is clear that the Russian policy failed because it did not hold back Milosevic, but that some solution will need to involve the Russians if we are to gain the political advantages from NATO's courageous military stance.

The Prime Minister: All I would say to the hon. Gentleman at this stage is that we constantly explore the longer-term strategy necessary with the Russians and others because it is increasingly clear that that must be seen in the wider context of lasting peace in the Balkans. On ground forces, he is right in saying that they must be NATO led. That is not to say that other countries cannot participate. They must be NATO led, however, because that is the only way in which we will secure the safety of people inside Kosovo.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Why does the Prime Minister suppose that the Serb community who live in

Britain, who see the television and have access to the newspapers, are 100 per cent. in favour of the stopping of bombing? Will the Prime Minister comment on the judgment of Spyros Kyprianou, having visited Belgrade, that it will go on for 100 days if necessary? That is the nature of the reaction of people who are bombed.
I have one specific question. Has the Prime Minister had across his desk the considered report of the German Federal Criminal Agency—I gather backed by Scotland Yard—which points out that the ethnic Albanian community is the most prominent group in Europe in the trafficking—[Interruption.] I am afraid that this is what the German Federal police say. They say that the KLA is drug financed—this is their view. What is our relationship with the KLA? There is a great danger that NATO has been tricked into being called in as the air arm of a very extreme group. This problem will not be solved by bombing, and some of us ask the Prime Minister to stop it tonight.

The Prime Minister: I can understand my hon. Friend being opposed to the bombing campaign; I really cannot understand his comments about the ethnic Albanian community, or about the KLA. There is no doubt as to who has been in the wrong. The people who cross the border are talking in the most harrowing terms of the rape, murder and brutality that they have witnessed. Those stories are real; that is what has actually happened in the last few weeks. The only way that we can stop it is to make sure that there is some force in the world prepared to stand up to Milosevic and say, "You will pay a price for this; and, if you carry on, you will pay a higher price and a heavier price," until he stops. I confess that I honestly do not understand my hon. Friend's attitude.

Mr. Douglas Hogg: The right hon. Gentleman described Mr. Milosevic's conduct as amounting to the murder, rape and terror on innocent people, and he is right; but given that, how can the right hon. Gentleman contemplate entering into an agreement with him? Is there not an inherent contradiction between, on one hand, having a policy of holding Mr. Milosevic and his generals personally liable for their actions and, on the other, seeking to bind them into an agreement? How does he reconcile these two objectives?

The Prime Minister: That is a question that in the end amounts to less than it appears. We are not negotiating with Milosevic on that. We have set down the terms; he has to meet those terms. If he or anyone else has committed crimes and the International War Crimes Tribunal indicts them as war criminals, we shall pursue them exactly as we are still pursuing those people from Bosnia—and we are picking them up, they are being indicted, and they are being taken to The Hague. We shall carry on doing that.

Dr. Phyllis Starkey: My right hon. Friend rightly pointed out the imperative reasons why NATO needed to act to oppose the ethnic cleansing that the Milosevic regime has been responsible for, but will he expand slightly on the long-term settlement that is being explored by NATO and others? Can he assure me that that long-term settlement will not effectively reward ethnic cleansing by redrawing borders to create a series of mono-ethnic states, but will instead


ensure that, in the fullness of time—it may be a long time ahead—we can recreate the multi-ethnic state that Kosovo could have been within Serbia if the Serbian Government had respected the autonomy of the region?

The Prime Minister: That is a good question. I believe that it is essential that any long-term settlement is not reached on the basis that we reward or tolerate ethnic cleansing.

Mr. Nicholas Soames: May I welcome the Prime Minister's announcement of the further troop deployment? Will he tell the House whether he and his colleagues in NATO have given any consideration to establishing safe havens along lines similar to those established in Iraq in 1991, which were extremely successful and backed up by coercive air power? Finally, in view of the fact that the refugees will return to a scene of total and utter devastation of their homes and communities, does the Prime Minister consider that it really is a very good idea in the next few days to get rid of a lot of Territorial Army sappers?

The Prime Minister: On the last point, we are quite sure that we have the required capability to carry out all the objectives that we set ourselves, and so does the Army, which is more important. As for the idea of safe havens, we consider all ways in which we can help to get aid to people and ensure their security. However, there are formidable difficulties in such an exercise. Of course, we keep everything under review.

Mr. Clive Soley: As a Member who has more Serbs in his constituency than most other Members have in theirs, may I say to my right hon. Friend that although they are desperately unhappy about the bombing, they know that there is a sense of shame among the Serb people at what is being done in their name? Ethnic cleansing is no part of Serbian culture. Ethnic cleansing is the mirror image of racial purity, which was practised during the second world war against the Serbs. Those thoughtful Serbs among my community know that, and that is the message that we must help them to get over. It is also the message that we must get over to the Serb people generally.

The Prime Minister: It is worth recalling that there are now 3.5 million displaced people in the Balkans as a result of Milosevic's policies. There are 1 million refugees in the European Union; and in Bosnia, before action was taken and the Dayton peace accords were put in place, 250,000 people died.

Mr. Alasdair Morgan: Can the Prime Minister say whether this morning's talks in Oslo have gone some way to making any progress in securing Russian involvement in this area, which I think we would all agree is not only desirable but probably essential for long-term stability?

The Prime Minister: I believe that those talks are going well. As I said earlier, I wish to have the Russians involved. However, there must be no dilution of the aims that NATO has set itself. In particular, we must ensure that there is no compromise whatever over Milosevic's

forces being withdrawn from Kosovo, over the international force being in there, or over the people being allowed unconditionally to return to their homes in safety.

Mr. Robert N. Wareing: I can assure the Prime Minister that I share his absolute repugnance at ethnic cleansing. Refugees should have the opportunity to return to their homes in Kosovo. However, may I point out to my right hon. Friend that we must be even-handed and that we must consider also the plight of the 280,000 Serb refugees who were brutally treated in Krajina, many of whom are now in camps in Serbia? What will the Government do to ensure that we are seen to be even-handed in our approach to former Yugoslavia?

The Prime Minister: We strongly condemned the Krajina expulsion. That should show Serb people that we are entirely even-handed. We are against ethnic cleansing from whatever quarter it comes. It would be much easier if we had a Government in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with whom we could work to debate the civilised principles of international law. We would then be in a far better position to deal with all these problems.
Our commitment to a long-term strategy for the Balkans is clear, but it is very difficult to see how it can be achieved until the policy of ethnic cleansing is not just defeated but wiped out of the lexicon of dictatorship in the Balkans for ever.

Mr. Roger Gale: May I join the Prime Minister in expressing the appreciation of my constituents for the professionalism of our armed forces? Having said that, I remind the right hon. Gentleman of what he said during the recess on television—"You will all be able to return to your homes"—knowing full well that many of "you" were already dead and that many of their homes had already been destroyed.
Did the right hon. Gentleman hear Mr. John Simpson on BBC television last night indicating in effect that the present policy is the best possible recruiting sergeant for Mr. Milosevic among the Serbian population? It may be unpalatable, but when will the right hon. Gentleman recognise that he and his incompetent Foreign Secretary have been bundled by the American Commander-in-Chief into this policy, and that the only way out now—I agree with the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell)—will be boots and armed forces on the ground?

The Prime Minister: First, in relation to the Kosovar Albanians, the hon. Gentleman should go and speak to some of them before he condemns the NATO action. As for reports from Belgrade, I think that it is worth reminding ourselves, every time we get them, that those people are allowed to be there by the Serbian Government. There is no free, independent television or radio in Serbia. Even reports that come from Serbia we should treat with suspicion, when the only things that those journalists are shown are things that the Serbian Government wish them to see.
As for the idea that we were bundled into this action, for a year before we took it we tried every diplomatic avenue. We tried exploring every political possibility. Why does the hon. Gentleman think that we tried, for month after month in the peace talks at Rambouillet, to reach a settlement? Precisely because we knew the
difficulties of such a campaign. In the end, I am afraid that—like it or not—in the real world we had either to stand by and allow this policy of ethnic cleansing to go on unhindered or to stand up to it and challenge it—and we have done that.

Mr. Peter L. Pike: May I assure my right hon. Friend that, as one who is just old enough to remember London being bombed at the end of the war, I certainly would like the bombing to end as soon as possible? However, must we not remember—time after time, as he has said—that Milosevic has forced us into this situation? Milosevic has refused—his track record shows it—to stop the ethnic cleansing and the policies that we find totally unacceptable; and this country would have been guilty if we had failed to take action and do something about that.
Is not the simple message to Milosevic, at all times, that he has the solution in his own hands and that he has to go forward from Rambouillet—and the quicker, the better? Does my right hon. Friend accept that countries such as Romania, which are right in the neighbourhood, also fully support the stand being taken by this country?

The Prime Minister: I agree with that entirely.

Mr. Michael Colvin: Does the Prime Minister appreciate that, as a result of the additional deployments of ground forces that he has announced today, nearly half our Army will be on active service, adding to the overstretch that it is already experiencing? Will the Government therefore give serious consideration to reversing their decision to mutilate the Territorial Army, which is our first line of reserve, or at least to postponing any implementation of that decision until after the Kosovo operation is ended, bearing in mind that large numbers of troops will be required on the ground to secure any peace, which is bound to be precarious, once the operation is concluded?

The Prime Minister: The Army has the capability to carry out the objectives that we have set ourselves. I do not want to get into a debate across the Chamber about the TA and so on, but I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that I recall that the Government whom he supported cut our armed forces by about 30 per cent. If we got into an argument of that nature, it would not be one that the Conservative party would win.
In relation to ground forces, it is precisely because we know that we will need a ground force to secure any lasting peace there that we are assembling the forces in the region. We have the forces available to do that.

Mrs. Alice Mahon: Given that what was supposed to be the world's first humanitarian war has turned into humanitarian disaster—with the Kosovars, in the short term, losing a country and the Serbs being bombed into the stone age—will the Prime Minister tell the House what is humanitarian about bombing a factory where workers are trying to protect their jobs? What is humanitarian about bombing civilians on a passenger train? Is it not time to stop the bombing, bring in the United

Nations and the Russians and get all parties round the negotiating table? There has to be a political solution at the end of the day; is not it better to start now?

The Prime Minister: There is nothing very humanitarian, either, about ethnic cleansing. As for a political solution, I have to say to my hon. Friend that there has always been one available. There is a political solution available now, but it depends on Milosevic stopping the repression, getting his forces out of Kosovo, allowing an international force in and people going back unhindered to their homes and their villages. Those are the only circumstances in which the NATO action will stop and that is the only humanitarian solution to this issue.

Mr. Alan Clark: Does the Prime Minister appreciate the irony that this week there falls the anniversary of the great Luftwaffe terror raid on Belgrade in 1941, ordered by Hitler in a rage because the Serbs had deposed the corrupt regency, refused to accede to his demands and were siding with Britain? Does he not see that he is straining the credulity of the House by saying that this bombardment is directed against Milosevic's war machine, when he has only to read the report from The Times Bonn correspondent to see that, in the past 24 hours, it has destroyed a plastics factory, scored several direct hits on a bus station and destroyed a white goods factory—in addition, as the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) pointed out a moment ago, to attacking and causing civilian casualties on a train? Does the Prime Minister realise that he is associating the House and the country with a sustained bombardment of a brave and Christian people who have never injured or even threatened a British citizen?

The Prime Minister: We make every attempt possible to minimise civilian casualties, but in actions such as this there will be civilian casualties. But the person who is engaged in oppression and terror is Milosevic in Kosovo. Where are these hundreds of thousands of people coming from, pouring across the border into Macedonia and Albania? They are fleeing from the terror regime that he is visiting upon them. It may be that British citizens are not at risk there, but there are human beings at risk, and we owe a duty, in Britain's best traditions, to support them in their fight for humanity.

Mr. Jim Marshall: May I ask my right hon. Friend two short questions? First, when the Ministry of Defence talks about areas being safe for troops to go to, as the leader of the Liberal Democrats said, are we not talking about peace keeping as opposed to peace making—"permissive" meaning peace keeping, not peace making? Secondly, my right hon. Friend referred to discussions with Prime Minister Primakov and President Yeltsin. Can he give us an interpretation of those discussions to illustrate what President Yeltsin meant last week when he talked about the possibility of a world war and of nuclear weapons being re-targeted on western Europe and north America?

The Prime Minister: I was simply making the point that there is a difference between a land invasion force and a force that goes in to secure people's return to their homeland, and that is what the ground force is there for. In relation to the discussions with the Russians, it is interesting to note that they do not object to the basis of the Rambouillet accords. On the contrary, they could support that. It is true, of course, that they object to the NATO military action. They have made that clear and I do not expect them to change that position. But they are as appalled as anyone else by Milosevic's actions, and it is important to remember that as we try to plot not just the military but the diplomatic path during the next few weeks.

Point of Order

Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. We have always been particularly careful that there should not be insult, intended or unintended, to individuals outside the House. I do not think that the Prime Minister meant it this way, but will he reflect on what he said about John Simpson and, for that matter, by implication, the other correspondents in Belgrade—

Madam Speaker: Order. I clearly heard what the Prime Minister said and it was perfectly in order.

Community Protection (Landfill)

Mr. David Taylor: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to reduce landfill disposal of municipal and special wastes and to control the location of landfill sites; to require the assessment of the impact of proposed landfill sites on public health, the local economy and the environment; and for connected purposes.
Last autumn, my Countryside Protection (Landfill and Opencast Mining) Bill was given a First Reading. It made provision for a presumption against landfill sites and opencast mines in open countryside. Subsequent announcements by the Government have answered some of the concerns that led me to bring that legislation before the House. Just two weeks ago today, tougher regulations in minerals planning guidance 3 on opencast mining were introduced. I welcome them as they resolve most of my worries about opencasting.
However, a major problem covered by my earlier Bill remains, and is tackled by this Bill. Former mining constituencies such as mine, with a long history of mineral workings, are especially vulnerable to continued planning applications for opencasting and quarrying, which is sometimes linked to a more damaging activity. Opencast mines have an even uglier and more dangerous sibling: landfill sites.
The House will be aware of the study published last summer in The Lancet on a possible link between birth defects and certain types of landfill site. The report said:
Women who live within 3 km of hazardous waste landfill sites have a 33 per cent. higher risk of having babies with birth defects.
I recognise that the statistical link between toxic landfill sites and the increased incidence of congenital malformations, cancers and cases of Down's syndrome in people living close to them is not necessarily a causal link, but there is sufficient epidemiological evidence to cause political concern.
I welcome the Imperial college statistical survey commissioned by the Government into the patterns of ill health around landfill sites. However, the conclusions of that study are still some years away. Precautionary legislative measures cannot wait that long. The unborn child must not be made to pay for our inadequate planning.
The presence of landfill sites close to local communities raises numerous health, economic, environmental and social issues. Just weeks ago, Leicestershire county council, in a panic about the shortage of landfill capacity, sold the environment of a village in my constituency for a generation. It allowed a huge refuse tip to be placed at the heart of our national forest. The Government office for the east midlands stood idly by, despite the fact that the application was outside national planning guidelines.
I am certain that what is happening to people living in that Leicestershire hamlet of Boothorpe is a fundamental breach of their human rights. Such injustice is echoed in many other places in our country. People's main concern is that old landfill sites are environmental nightmares, and new landfill sites are often as rigorously controlled as Chernobyl. All sites leak pollutants such as methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas, into the surrounding environment, or they leach out into the water table.
Landfill sites are still in operation despite the much tougher planning regime I propose, and my Bill would force their operators to meet the wider social costs incurred. It would ensure adequate compensation to communities and individuals who suffer. A compensation regime would deter business and industry from creating landfill sites. Money talks and business listens: voters talk and Governments must be made to listen.
I believe that the Government are listening. They are reviewing their strategy on waste. Their vision incorporates seven key commitments. They propose more recycling and energy recovery. That sounds fine, but let us not ignore the problems. Are incinerators huge and expensive one-stop solutions to a modern society's waste problems—throw them into the oven and, hey presto, they are gone? Not quite. They have three main byproducts: heat, fly ash and air pollution, the last two of which can cause significant environmental problems in their own right.
The Government propose increased public involvement in re-use and recycling of household waste, including perhaps charging for waste disposal. We need challenging and realistic targets. In theory at least, 80 per cent. of waste is recyclable, whereas in reality the national recycling rate is less than 10 per cent. Most other developed nations have far higher rates.
The Government intend to place a strong emphasis on waste minimalisation, and on the need to change the perception of the waste hierarchy. They propose a more creative use of economic incentives and the possible use of landfill tax revenues to fund recycling. They want increased public involvement in the decision-making process, which is a crucial requirement that is tackled by my Bill. I look forward to the announcement about the consultation, which is due very soon.
My modest Bill aims to identify a way ahead for the Government in certain respects. My county council, Leicestershire, is to hold a public inquiry on its waste land later this year. The plan, like others being drafted throughout the country, will define the future direction of waste policy in our area. The big question is: will the council opt for a recycling-led or an incineration-led policy? It is vital for it to get that right, and to avoid like the plague—I use that term advisedly—the use of landfill.
There are those who argue that anti-landfill campaigners are premature or alarmist. I do not accept that. These are great matters, and the public deserve greater reassurance. We want to ensure that landfill disease is not the next BSE.
This, then, is my charter for the healthy disposal of waste. The Bill proposes the establishment of a national landfill policy, consistent with human rights legislation; the banning of new landfill sites within 2 km of residential property, and the closure of existing sites of that kind within a year, or voluntary and compensated relocation of affected residents; an independent inquiry into the failures of landfill regulation, especially the conduct of the Environment Agency and waste planning authorities; independent and continuous monitoring of pollutants and notifiable diseases, the data being freely published to all interested parties; a ban on the granting of permission for, and the immediate closure of, landfill sites where there will be, or has been, a detrimental effect on public health; more Government-sponsored scientific research into the


causes of landfill diseases and prevention methods; and compensation for victims, such as children with Down's syndrome or other disabilities.
My Bill proposes the establishment of waste planning authorities to obtain independent health and environmental impact assessments, and a local economic analysis as part of the determination of applications. It proposes the setting up of an independent regulatory body for the planning, licensing and monitoring of landfill sites. It also proposes the full implementation of European waste management, landfill and pollution control directives, and a major review of the Government's hierarchy of waste disposal methods. It proposes a cumulative annual 5 per cent. reduction in biodegradable tonnage going to landfill, with the figure reaching zero by 2020. That is more ambitious than the European directive, under which 35 per cent. will still be landfilled.
In the Palace of Westminster this afternoon there has been a major national lobby, bringing together individuals and groups concerned about the impact of landfill sites on health and human rights. People have travelled here from all over the country; many have come from mining areas such as mine in north-west Leicestershire. The voices of individuals protesting alone are often lost in the winds of indifference, but the voices of campaigning communities can give landfill operators pause for thought, and the voice of a national lobby demanding change must spur Government into action.
Today's protest was called "Community Lobby Opposing Unhealthy Tips"—CLOUT. These communities now have clout, and they are starting to use it. As a Back-Bench MP, I may have relatively little clout, but in introducing my Bill I hope to bring to the attention of a wider audience the concerns with which many who are near such tips must live on a daily basis.
Government can act; indeed, Government must act. I submit that my proposals could form the basis for such action. They are worth while, workable and long overdue, and I commend them to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. David Taylor, Mr. Tony Benn, Liz Blackman, Mr. Peter Bradley, Mr. Jim Cunningham, Mr. Phil Hope, Judy Mallaber, Dr. Nick Palmer, Mr. Andrew Reed, Mr. Alan Simpson, Mr. Dennis Skinner and Mr. Mark Todd.

COMMUNITY PROTECTION (LANDFILL)

Mr. David Taylor accordingly presented a Bill to reduce landfill disposal of municipal and special wastes and to control the location of landfill sites; to require the assessment of the impact of proposed landfill sites on public health, the local economy and the environment; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 23 July, and to be printed [Bill 81].

Orders of the Day — Health Bill [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): I inform the House that Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. I remind the House that there will be a 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches throughout the debate.

The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Frank Dobson): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill is an important part of the Government's strategy to build a modern and dependable health service to serve the people of this country in the new century. That is what we promised at the general election and it is a promise that we are keeping.
The national health service that we inherited was in danger. It had about it an air of inexorable decline. The Conservatives had introduced a competitive internal market, which set doctor against doctor and hospital against hospital. Their misguided introduction of a commercial approach to health care was a costly failure. It shifted funds from patient care to bureaucracy and corroded both the ethics of the medical professions and the philosophy of working together, on which the health service was founded. It also resulted in a two-tier system for patients.
That the NHS survived owes nothing to the Tory Ministers involved and everything to the hard work of NHS staff the length and breadth of the country. Despite their valiant efforts, the NHS that we inherited was in trouble. Between them, health authorities and trusts had deficits totalling £460 million. Waiting lists were at an all-time high and rising. Capital investment was at its lowest for a decade. The Tory Government had stopped collecting details of pay, so that they could claim that a national minimum wage would bankrupt the NHS. They were not trying to manage the NHS; they had not bothered to find out even how many intensive care beds there were.
As was revealed in the reports that I commissioned into the scandals in Kent and Canterbury and Devon and Exeter, the standard of breast cancer and cervical screening was not being monitored. The Tory Government had paid £33 million in fees to lawyers and accountants to develop a private finance initiative, but not a single hospital had been started. Highly qualified staff were left to work in rundown buildings, often let down by equipment that failed them. There was a shortage of nurses, but, rather than tackling it, the Tories denied that it existed and reduced the number of nurses who were being trained.
Assaults on NHS staff were, so the staff said, getting worse, but the then Government did not do anything about it: they could not be bothered even to collect the figures. The private health care sector, which is so dear to the Tories, went virtually unregulated. Mixed-sex wards continued to make life a misery for many patients. In many parts of the country, NHS dentists virtually disappeared.
The development of information technology systems in the health service was years behind that in many other services and industries. NHS computing was best known for scandalous waste on systems that did not work. Nor was there any long-term strategy to make things better.
Health professionals had been ignored. The Tory Government had done little to help the profession's strength and self-regulation to raise standards and to benefit patients. Careers were held back and pay held down by archaic grading systems.
The Tories denied that the increasing wealth gap between the best off and worst off had increased a health gap between rich and poor individuals and rich and poor neighbours. Ministers banned the use of the words "health inequalities."
In deference to their commercial paymasters, the Tories had refused to ban tobacco advertising. They had helped to form a blocking minority to prevent the introduction of a Europe-wide directive to counter the promotion of cigarettes. Millions of pounds were being stolen from the NHS through prescription fraud. Millions of pounds more that were legally owed to the NHS by road traffic accident insurers were not being collected, so the new Government who were elected on 1 May 1997 had a lot to do.

Mr. Andrew Lansley: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Dobson: No; I will get on.
The new Government had a lot to do, not just to start to put things right, but to lay the foundations for a modern and dependable health service for the new century.
We set out in a White Paper our proposals to create a new NHS. We followed that up with further detailed papers that spelt out how we intended to go about it. We published a 10-year strategy to bring information technology in the NHS up to date. We have spelt out our proposals to modernise social services and mental health services. We have published a Green Paper on how we propose to improve public health.
We have not only said what we intend to do, we have got on with it. For a start, we have invested extra money in the health service. In our first year, we provided an extra £300 million on top of the budget that we inherited. In the year just ended, we invested £2 billion more than the previous Government had planned to spend.
Over the next three years, as announced in the comprehensive spending review, we shall invest an extra £21 billion, giving the NHS a much bigger annual increase than the 3 per cent. per annum for which all the experts and our opponents had called. The three-year settlement will enable the NHS to plan ahead, in a way which proved impossible in the short-term world of annual settlements.

Mr. Lansley: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Dobson: As you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have announced that so many hon. Members—primarily Labour Members—wish to speak in the debate, I should like to get on with it, so that no one will be excluded.
In the previous year, £500 million of that extra money was targeted on reducing waiting lists. We promised, by the end of March 1999, to get waiting lists below the figure that we inherited; we did that, and more, by the end of February.
In the year just ended, making good use of the extra funds that this Government found, the dedicated staff of the NHS have carried out an extra 460,000 waiting-list operations, and dealt with 140,000 extra emergency cases and 150,000 extra first out-patient appointments. That is not to mention the tens of thousands of extra people who have needed an out-patient check-up after their in-patient operation. In the coming year, a further £320 million will be earmarked to bring waiting lists down further, and also to deal with many more out-patients and emergencies and to pilot the introduction of booked admissions systems across the NHS.
To help deal with the shortage of nurses, we have implemented the Nurses and Midwives Pay Review Body's recommendations—nationally and in full, for the first time in five years—giving all nurses an increase of at least 4.7 per cent., newly qualified nurses 12 per cent., and 70,000 lower-paid nurses at least 8 per cent. Consequently, two thirds of all qualified nurses are now paid £20,000 or more a year.
We have mounted a very successful national nursing campaign, which has had 53,000 responses. More than 5,000 of the responses were from nurses asking about returning to the NHS. Many of them require refresher courses because they have been out of nursing for more than three years; those courses are being provided free. At least 450 former nurses are already back at work in the NHS because of the initiative that we have taken, and 2,000 extra student nurses are already in training.
We have provided for extra payments for nurses and other professionals at the top of their grade. In consultation with staff representatives, we propose to replace the current rigid grading systems with ones that reward people for the responsibilities that they take on.

Mr. Michael Fabricant: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We heard all that in the Queen's Speech. Are we going to hear anything about the Health Bill itself?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: As hon. Members are aware, we are allowed a fairly wide-ranging debate on Second Reading.

Mr. Dobson: Opposition Members are so eager to hear our common-sense proposals that they cannot be bothered to hold back for even a moment. They need to know the background to our proposals in the Bill, and that is what they are going to get.
We shall remove the barriers that are holding back the careers of many nurses and other professionals and holding down their pay. We are also negotiating with doctors on a new consultants' contract and providing better conditions for junior doctors.
We promised to sort out the Tory mess in the private finance initiative, and we have. We passed a short Bill to clarify the law, and we have launched the biggest hospital-building programme in the history of the NHS, with 15 new hospitals already being built and 16 more on the way. A thousand GP premises are being modernised,


and we are modernising every accident and emergency department that needs it. We are also using lottery money to help provide newer and more reliable equipment, such has scanners and linear accelerators for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
All that investment will not only help patients and staff, but create jobs in construction, manufacturing and service industries. We have already diverted funds from the bureaucracy of fundholding into breast cancer facilities. In response to the scandals that arose under the Tories, we have set new standards in breast and cervical cancer screening, and put machinery in place to make sure that those standards are met—something that the trio of former Secretaries of State for Health who are on the Opposition Benches today never managed to get round to.
We have invested £350 million this year in replacing unreliable equipment, both to help patients and to reduce the frustration of staff. With the support of the British Medical Association, we have replaced the divisions between fundholding and non-fundholding GPs with primary care groups, on which all GPs, as well as nurses, the social services and lay members, are represented. I take the opportunity to pay tribute to the medical profession for its voluntary agreement to share decision making in primary care with those other groups.
The Tory amendment refers to the popularity of fundholding, but many fundholders were reluctant participants in the scheme. Even before the Bill has been passed, only 46 of the 3,383 fundholding practices have opted to remain in the scheme. Only 1.4 per cent. have taken what the Tory amendment calls the "popular option". If the Tories think that something chosen by 1.4 per cent. is popular, we can see why they are doing so well in the polls.
The Bill provides for primary care groups to progress to becoming primary care trusts, with wider powers and duties to provide and arrange treatment and care for patients. It will abolish fundholding, and thus reduce the bureaucracy arising from commissioning organisations by replacing them with 481 primary care groups, and replacing annual contracts with longer-term service agreements.
The Bill will give all the national health service organisations a duty of co-operation, in place of the competition that the Tories tried to force on them. It will also require them to co-operate with local councils, and change the law to allow the NHS and local councils to pool budgets and carry further the practical co-operation that they have been putting into practice since the general election.
The legal changes will remove the last obstacles to those bodies working together to provide joint services for local people—for example, helping old people at home to avoid their having to go into hospital unnecessarily, and allowing them to come out of hospital safely when they have recovered.
The Bill will also oblige health authorities, in co-operation with the rest of the health service, and with local councils, voluntary organisations and others, to prepare health improvement programmes to identify the health care needs of their areas and then set about meeting those needs.
Once the Bill becomes law, NHS trusts will be obliged to have in place systems to monitor and improve both the quality of treatment that patients receive and the outcome

of that treatment. That obligation has never existed before, and it will augment what the professions have been trying to do. To help them in that process, the Bill also contains provisions to modernise and strengthen the self-regulation of the clinical professions.
What we propose follows extensive consultation with the professions. After Government amendments made in the House of Lords, the Bill commands the support of the relevant professional bodies. Until now, most changes to the arrangements for the self-regulation of health care professions have required primary legislation, which has led to enormous delays and consequent frustration. The Bill will make most changes possible through Orders in Council rather than primary legislation.
The Bill will also make it possible to meet the aspirations of the professions allied to medicine, and bring into the self-regulatory arrangements a number of professions that are not now legally regulated. All matters central to self-regulation will, rightly, remain with the professional bodies—professional registers, standards of education, guidance on professional conduct and fitness to practise.
All our initiatives are intended to improve the quality of treatment and care. The main aim of better training, continuous professional development, the professional revalidation now being introduced by the General Medical Council and clinical governance is not to expose failure, but to reduce the number of problems that arise and to deal with them in good time so that matters can be put right before patients suffer. We want no more Bristol scandals and no more need for public inquiries.
In that spirit, the Bill provides for the establishment of a Commission for Health Improvement to carry out regular independent reviews and investigations and to offer advice and help to health service trusts in their efforts to deliver top-quality care. The system is designed to contribute to improving the NHS.
An amendment was passed in the House of Lords to extend the commission's duties to cover private acute hospitals. They certainly need to be properly regulated, but the Commission for Health Improvement is not designed to do the job. Under the previous Government, private hospitals were treated as private nursing homes for regulatory purposes. At the election we promised to introduce independent regulation of all residential care. When we do that, we shall need to make special—probably separate—arrangements to regulate private acute hospitals. We shall consult on that shortly.

Mr. Philip Hammond: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his right hon. Friend Baroness Jay told me, in the presence of her civil servants, that it was no part of the function of the national health service to regulate the private sector?

Mr. Dobson: And my right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not a function of the national health service to regulate the private health care sector, it is a Government function, and we should distinguish between them here and now. If an NHS body was responsible, the first time that it criticised a private hospital or said that something was wrong, some bleating Tories would leap up and say that it was prejudiced.
At the election, we promised to establish independent regulation of all residential care, and we shall. The body that regulates private hospitals will need to license the
hospitals, act as a registrar, have a right of access to carry out regular inspections, publish inspection reports and enforce any licence conditions that have been laid down for the protection of the public. As the Commission for Health Improvement will not have any of those powers, it is unlikely to be suitable for the role. Action is clearly necessary to prevent a recurrence of the situation that, as the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) knows, arose in Kent under the Tories when a gynaecologist who had been banned from the NHS for sub-standard work was able to continue to practise at private hospitals.
The Bill also deals with shortcomings in the pharmaceutical price regulation scheme, which sets the price of drugs used by the NHS. Some companies were refusing to comply with the existing scheme. The estimated cost to the NHS was £30 million a year and rising. Under our proposals the scheme will remain voluntary, but the Bill provides powers to make all concerned comply with the terms of the voluntary agreement. That is fair to the taxpayer and to the majority of pharmaceutical companies, which have always met their obligations under the scheme.

Mr. John Bercow: rose—

Mr. Dobson: Before anyone leaps up to defend the pharmaceutical industry, I must point out that the Bill, as amended by the Government in the Lords, meets the requirements of the industry. The reputable companies are satisfied with what we are proposing, because they are as sick to death as we are of the freeloaders who are not playing the game. The Tories support the freeloaders who do not play the game. I am confident that the renegotiated PPRS and the new legal powers will offer a good way forward for that highly successful industry, the NHS and the taxpayer.

Mr. Bercow: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Mr. Dobson: No.
The Bill provides new powers to help tackle fraud against the NHS by a small minority of patients and practitioners at the expense of the honest majority. It also modernises the framework under which trusts operate. That reflects their status as public sector organisations. High-security hospitals will become NHS trusts.
Our approach is to set quality standards nationally, deliver improvements locally and monitor performance externally. That is why, with the support of the professions, we set up the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, to provide authoritative guidance to all parts of the NHS on the effectiveness and value of new treatments.
We are introducing national service frameworks to set national standards and spell out the models of treatment and care that should be provided in every part of the country for particular conditions or groups of patients. The first national service frameworks will cover coronary heart disease and mental health, followed by one covering the treatment and care of older people and then one covering diabetes.
Placing a duty of clinical governance on NHS trusts will help to deliver improvements locally. The Commission for Health Improvement will provide the external monitoring, advice and help that will be needed if targets are to be achieved.

Mr. Bercow: I am sure that the Secretary of State would not want in any way to give incorrect information to the House. He said that the pharmaceutical industry was entirely content with his proposals to revise the voluntary scheme. Why, then, is the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry objecting to several clauses, and not least to clause 30 because it does not provide explicit criteria or any express requirement of reasonableness?

Mr. Dobson: The association said that the changes made in the House of Lords have, by and large, met the needs of the industry, and so they have. [Interruption.] If the hon. yapper wants to do something useful, I suggest that he gets on the Standing Committee and tables amendments to deal with the companies that have not been complying with the terms of the PPRS.
By our extra investment, we are ensuring that the effectiveness of staff is not undermined by out-of-date equipment. We are determined that in future the excellence of staff will be matched by top-quality buildings and reliable, up-to-date equipment and pharmaceuticals. Nothing less will do, for patients or for staff.
We are committed to investing £1 billion in a long-term strategy to provide the NHS with a top-quality information technology system that works, and to develop an electronic record for every patient that can be accessed by all professionals who need to use it. That way, GPs, practice and community nurses, accident and emergency staff, out-patient clinics, hospital specialists and, eventually, even ambulance paramedics can have access to a reliable, accurate, up-to-date picture of the health record of every patient who comes their way.
All those improvements in treatment and care are being developed with resources from the modernisation fund that we established as part of the comprehensive spending review. That fund is financing the rapid development of NHS Direct, a 24-hour nurse-led helpline that has proved an enormous success in the three pilot schemes that have now run for more than a year in the north-east, in north Lancashire and in Buckinghamshire.
NHS Direct now covers roughly 40 per cent. of the country, and by December it will cover 60 per cent. It provides a popular service, especially for older people and young parents. Some 97 per cent. of the users surveyed were satisfied with the service. At my insistence, it offers opportunities for trained nurses who, because of injury, have had to give up work, to use their skills again for the benefit of patients and for their own job satisfaction. I was delighted that several nurses in that group had been taken on by NHS Direct in west Yorkshire, which I visited last week, including one paraplegic nurse in a wheelchair who now feels that there is some purpose back in her life.

Dr. Jenny Tonge (Richmond Park): I appreciate the good intentions of NHS Direct and of the scheme that has been announced today, but the Secretary of State must be aware that it can be difficult to give accurate information without physically examining a patient. Members of Parliament often get complaints from patients who have


received misadvice over the telephone from GP deputising services. How does he intend to cover the doctors and nurses who give information, and is he worried that there may be misdiagnoses?

Mr. Dobson: All the evidence is that it is possible for the finest, most expert clinician, doctor or nurse to give a misdiagnosis face to face. I do not suggest that it is easy to give a diagnosis over the telephone, and other problems arise from that situation, but diagnosis is a relatively imprecise science, or art, at the best of times. The cover that we provide for NHS Direct staff is the same indemnity that is provided for any employed member of the NHS staff. We will clear up any difficulties that arise from advice being given over the telephone which are discovered when the patient visits a GP.
Some people, including some in the medical profession, expressed doubts about diagnosis over the telephone. In Preston and Chorley, where the scheme has been running for a year, the distinguished director of nursing is using the protocols used by the local NHS Direct scheme for training nurses to work in the accident and emergency department because, she tells me, those protocols are more rigorous than anything that has been used in the past. She knows what she is talking about because she has been involved in the project from the start. I repeat that 97 per cent. of the users are satisfied with the service.

Dr. Howard Stoate: The real issue in giving telephone advice is not so much whether it is right or wrong, but when it is appropriate to advise the patient to take other action. I am sure that my right hon. Friend agrees that advice given over the telephone could include a recommendation to the patient to see a doctor face to face, or a decision to send an ambulance to take the patient to an A and E department. Provided the person at the end of the telephone is trained correctly in decision making, there should be no problem.

Mr. Dobson: I almost entirely agree with my hon. Friend, but something will always go wrong. Things go wrong in every bit of the health care system and always will, but through training and substantial effort we can keep problems to a minimum. If someone gets through to the nurse, sometimes they are given reassurance and sometimes they are given advice. Sometimes that advice includes a warning to see a doctor straight away and sometimes a warning to attend A and E as soon as possible. Occasionally, the advice is to stay and wait for the ambulance that is being sent. Generally speaking, most of the clinicians in those parts of the country with an NHS Direct scheme are highly satisfied with the arrangements. That is why several areas are asking for NHS Direct to extend its functions beyond the 24-hour line.

Miss Ann Widdecombe: No one doubts that even the best diagnosis can go wrong—quod erat demonstrandum. That is not the issue. The issue is whether the Secretary of State accepts—and if not, why not—that if advice is given by somebody who does not know the patient or his history, there is an increased risk of that advice being wrong. The issue is not whether family doctors who give advice face to face are

infallible; it is whether there is an increased risk of getting the advice wrong if the person giving it has never dealt with the patient before.

Mr. Dobson: Clearly, it is best if the patient is in front of the person giving the advice and that that person has the patient's full medical history and is able to carry out some tests. However, that is not what NHS Direct offers—it provides telephone advice and help and, in some cases, an urgent attention service. In that respect, it is similar to many out-of-hours services where doctors do not have the records of the patients with whom they are dealing.
It might not be ideal, but NHS Direct is immensely popular with the public and it would be best if people did not attempt to run it down, because they are running down a large number of highly skilled people—top-quality nurses, advised in some cases by doctors, and good managements—who have taken this opportunity to provide a new additional service as well as everything else provided by the NHS. In some parts of the country, the service is being extended—at the request of general practitioners, so they obviously have faith in it—to provide a gateway to GP services, social services and mental health services.
As well as taking incoming calls, the nurses can also be used to ring out. Pilot schemes are being introduced in which, during troughs in the number of incoming calls, nurses can ring out to remind patients about out-patient appointments; about the availability of flu jabs; to remind women of appointments for cancer screening; or to check whether a patient, recently discharged from hospital, is okay. Like NHS Direct, all those things go with the grain of what health care staff are already developing locally.
Today, in Birmingham, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister invited primary care groups to suggest proposals for 20 pilot schemes to develop fast access NHS walk-in centres in towns and cities throughout the country, open from early morning until late at night and at weekends, to provide information—

Miss Widdecombe: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am aware of your previous ruling that Second Reading debates may go wide, but we have now spent a considerable amount of time hearing about issues that are not part of the Bill. The Secretary of State has spent about 10 minutes on NHS Direct and that has nothing to do with the Bill.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have already explained that the debate on Second Reading can range very widely and I am sure that the Secretary of State will come to the Bill quite soon.

Mr. Dobson: The right hon. Lady realises that I shall be moving on to matters that she wants to talk about. However, one of the problems is that she does not want to talk about success stories in the national health service; they deeply upset her. The Tories can never make their minds up. When I stood at the Dispatch Box about a month ago to announce the extension of NHS Direct, they welcomed it, but they have now returned to carping mode.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister invited primary care groups to put forward proposals for 20 pilot schemes to develop fast access NHS walk-in centres in towns and cities throughout the country, open from early morning until late at night and at weekends. They will provide information and advice and will treat minor conditions without appointment. Some will be located next to existing accident and emergency departments and others will be in shopping centres. They, too, are intended to go with the grain of local developments and we shall work with primary care groups and primary care trusts—[Interruption.]—which are in the Bill, to set them up and run them. The trouble is that the Opposition know so little about the health service that they did not realise that the primary care groups and trusts would be involved.
The Health Bill changes the law to speed up that process. It restores to health professionals opportunities to exercise their clinical judgment, curtailed or taken away by the Tories. It widens the choice open to patients to obtain the most appropriate treatment. it continues the process of reducing unnecessary and expensive bureaucracy in the health service. It will create a stable structure in which a modern and dependable health service can be provided and developed. It puts in place a system for managing the NHS that makes clear who is responsible for quality and performance in every part of the health service. It also makes sure that NHS performance at all levels is properly monitored to secure high standards in every part of the country.

Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Mr. Dobson: No.
Our national health service has served our country for 50 years. It is the most popular institution in Britain, partly because the people working in it do such a good job and partly because it is a practical demonstration of the benefits of working together. British people are not just pleased that the NHS is there to look after them—they gain deep satisfaction from knowing that it will look after all of us.
We promised to stop the rot in the NHS, and we have done that. It is not enough, however, just to save the NHS. We are reversing decline and making sure the service's prospects are bright. The British people want to experience a new, modern and dependable NHS that can give easier and quicker access to the top-quality treatment and care that they need, and that draws on new technology to update the best of the old ways of doing things and to develop new ways of providing what patients need when and where they need it.
That huge undertaking will take a long time to fulfil. It will require leadership and it will depend on professional support. It will require the active involvement of Government, business, local councils, voluntary organisations and individuals, as well as of people working in the NHS. I am convinced that it is the way ahead if we want to make sure that the NHS in the new century will retain, renew and enhance its world renown for fairness, efficiency and quality.
The Bill is sound common sense. Only a fool would oppose it.

Miss Ann Widdecombe: I beg to move,
That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Health Bill [Lords] because it removes choice from both patients and healthcare professionals over appropriate treatment; it removes the highly successful and popular option of fund-holding for family doctors; it imposes unnecessary and expensive bureaucracy and creates further upheaval in the Health Service, which is already under considerable strain; it undermines the competitiveness of the British pharmaceutical industry; and it centralises power in the hands of the Secretary of State, giving him arbitrary authority over the running of the Health Service without sufficient reference to Parliament.
I could not help feeling sorry for the Secretary of State for Health as he rose to move the Second Reading. There is so little of worth in the Bill that he had to use his whole speech to talk about matters that have nothing to do with it. His must have been the most inadequate presentation of a Bill that I have witnessed during my time in Parliament.
The Bill, which I, at least, will discuss, does nothing to address the fundamental problems that have existed in our health service since the time of Bevan. We have a three-tier health service. On the top tier are those who receive national health service treatment or who choose to go to the private sector because that is what they want.
On the second tier are those who do not receive NHS treatment, either because of excessive delays—the number of those waiting more than 12 months has doubled since the Government came to power—or because treatment is not available. Those people do not choose to go to the private sector, but can, sometimes at considerable personal sacrifice, choose the private alternative if they have to. In that category, I include people such as those who have sold their houses to buy beta interferon.

Mr. Christopher Leslie: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Miss Widdecombe: I shall go through the three tiers, and then I shall give way.
It is clear that the second tier is being failed, but the third tier is wholly dispossessed. It contains people who cannot receive NHS treatment, either through excessive delays or through unavailability of operations, and who, even if they do not eat, cannot afford to go private.

Dr. Desmond Turner: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Miss Widdecombe: I shall in a moment.
Not a single thing in the Bill addresses the problems of the totally dispossessed. On the contrary, the Bill will increase the number of dispossessed, because one of its consistent themes is rationing.
I have promised to give way to two hon. Members. Unlike the Secretary of State, I shall have the courtesy to give way to Back Benchers from time to time.

Mr. Leslie: It will be a short intervention. Does the right hon. Lady have private medical insurance?

Miss Widdecombe: The right hon. Lady does have private medical insurance.

Dr. Desmond Turner: There is much truth in what the right hon. Lady says, but does she agree that the reasons


for the health inequalities that she has described are inherent in the system of, for instance, fundholding GPs, for which her Government were responsible, and in the structural problems that her Government built into the health service?

Miss Widdecombe: The exact opposite is true. I am not claiming and I have never claimed—in the House or outside it—that we created a perfect health service. There are problems in the health service, which the Government would be wise to acknowledge. If the Government acknowledged them, they might address them.

Mr. Ivan Lewis: rose—

Miss Widdecombe: I am already answering an intervention. I was asked whether fundholding increased the inequalities and led to the dispossession that I have been outlining.
That dispossession has been a feature of the NHS under successive Governments, because the NHS has not yet found a way—in my view, it will not find a way until we consider some real innovation—of being able to do it all. However, fundholding enabled a doctor to say to a dispossessed patient, "You may not be able to get that treatment here, but I can send you elsewhere to get it." There should have been a levelling up so that every patient had a fundholding doctor, but the Bill levels down and will ensure that no patients have fundholding doctors. When it comes to a choice of treatment, patients will have a choice of one.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Miss Widdecombe: I will presently, but a stack of people are queueing to intervene. I shall address the points as they come.
The Secretary of State is so amused by the plight of the dispossessed that he is sitting there laughing. I hope that the patients who are watching this debate today because they hope that something may come out of it for them will have observed the Secretary of State and those on the Benches behind him laughing, and will understand that nothing that the Secretary of State is doing will help the dispossessed. All that the Secretary of State and his junior Ministers have done in their time in office is to deny that rationing exists.

Mr. Ivan Lewis: rose—

Miss Widdecombe: I said that I would give way presently. I shall not forget the hon. Gentleman. He need not give the impression of a jack-in-the-box; I know that he is in the queue, but he can wait.
As I was saying, the Bill does nothing for the dispossessed. It is well known that the Secretary of State has never yet managed to look me in the eyes when I—oh, he is getting into practice. After the implementation of the Bill, he will have a great deal of difficulty looking the nation in the eyes. In fact, if one looks into the eyes of those behind him, one can already see the beginnings of a terrible doubt about what Labour is doing to the health service. Labour Members' mouths may move in tune with their pagers, but their eyes say something

rather different. Their eyes say that they are beginning to realise that the Secretary of State does not have some magic solution to enable the NHS to meet every need. I am careful to say "need", not "demand".

Mr. Lewis: rose—

Dr. Stoate: rose—

Miss Widdecombe: I am going to give way to the jack-in-the-box first.

Mr. Lewis: I shall address my intervention to the dispossessed on the Conservative Benches. How will the dispossessed or, indeed, anyone else using the NHS benefit from a significant increase in the number of people using private health care, which is the alternative strategy that the right hon. Lady and her party have articulated of late? Roughly what proportion of the population currently using the health service does she believe should be encouraged by a responsible Government to ditch the health service and use the private sector?

Miss Widdecombe: If the hon. Gentleman would examine what I am proposing instead of being overwhelmed by his own propaganda, he would find that I am not suggesting what he suggests. Any future Conservative Government will continue to increase in real terms, year on year, spending on the health service. There is no question of using the private sector as a substitute for the health service. I admit that no matter how much extra the Secretary of State, I, or anybody else tries to spend on the health service, it will not be able to do it all. In addition to increased spending on the health service, I want a real injection of fresh, new resources into the health service from the private sector.

Mr. Lewis: rose—

Miss Widdecombe: I have given way to the hon. Gentleman; I am answering his question.

Dr. Stoate: On that point—

Miss Widdecombe: Sit down! [Interruption.] Not you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Labour Members can sit down and stay sitting down while I work through this point. The dispossessed—

Mr. John Austin: rose—

Miss Widdecombe: Sit! Perhaps it would help if I said that I shall make progress before taking any further interventions. That might save Labour Members a considerable amount of exercise. I ask them to stay seated for a while.
I have already said that the dispossessed are not helped by the Bill. What does the Secretary of State intend to do to assist the dispossessed? According to the Bill, he intends to increase rationing. The theme of the Bill is that we shall have first, as background, a National Institute for
Clinical Excellence, which will decide on the availability of drugs according to their cost. If the Secretary of State has any doubt about that —

Mr. Austin: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is the National Institute for Clinical Excellence in the Bill? Is it relevant to our discussion?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is a matter for debate.

Miss Widdecombe: The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Mr. Austin) was not listening. I said — and he will see it in Hansard — "by way of background". I suggest that he listens a little more and talks less, and then he might understand something. The Bill will follow up NICE with CHIMP — the Commission for Health Improvement, which is in the Bill. I have already said that NICE will ration drugs according to cost; CHIMP will implement that policy.
Furthermore, under primary care groups, there will be, for the first time, cash-limited drugs budgets. If cash-limited drugs budgets are not an aid to rationing, I do not know what is. On top of everything else, the Bill prescribes control of drugs pricing, so that some drugs could be squeezed out altogether.
Let us add all that up. There is NICE, by way of background, CHIMP, which is in the Bill, cash limits for primary care groups and control of drugs pricing. Yet, Ministers have denied twice at the Dispatch Box recently that there is rationing in the health service. What will happen is that the number of dispossessed who cannot afford the private sector and who will not get those drugs from the NHS, and who will not get from the NHS other treatments that NICE may decide are too costly, will actually increase, and they will get nothing at all.

Dr. Stoate: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Miss Widdecombe: No. Will the hon. Gentleman please sit down? He has been told that he will not be successful in his endeavours. I know that doctors like exercise, but I ask him to stay sitting down.
The Government make their proposals against a background of failure and incompetent management of the health service. First, they have said that they are spending record levels on the health service, and that somehow, that will meet all the problems of the health service — that a Secretary of State with a bit of good will and a bit of extra cash is all that we need to address the fundamental issue of squaring need and supply in the health service.
The Secretary of State is very fond of saying that he is spending an extra £21 billion. Let us look at the Treasury Red Book and the Government's own figures, which show that expenditure in 1997 –98 was £ 34.688 billion, and that in 2001–02, it is proposed to be £ 45.179 billion. Most people who have reached even 11-plus standard could work out that that difference is not £ 21 billion, but less than £11 billion; that that less than £ 11 billion represents a real-terms increase of 3.8 per cent.; and that, in the five years preceding those figures, the real-terms increase was 3.8 per cent.
The Secretary of State is very fond of saying that the real-terms increase for the three years from 1998 to 2001 is 4.7 per cent. and is a record, but it is not; because

between 1990 and 1993, the real-terms increase was 5.6 per cent. That clearly shows that it is impossible to solve all the problems of the health service on money that has increased less in real terms than has been tried in the past.

Dr. Evan Harris: I do not doubt the right hon. Lady's figures, but does she accept that the only reason that the Government, during their first term in office, will spend less than the previous Conservative Government's record, is that, for two years, the present Government stuck to the very low, even miserly, real-terms increases in the Conservative spending plans? Further, does she recognise that, as no Government would cut NHS spending in real terms, her commitment — just like the Government's commitment —to raise spending in real terms, which could be just inflation plus £ 1, is generally meaningless?

Miss Widdecombe: I am afraid that the epidemic of not listening has broken out on the Liberal Democrat Benches as well. If the hon. Gentleman had followed the years that I was quoting, he would have found that I am quoting Labour's spending plans. Therefore, there is no magic, fresh expenditure that will suddenly change everything, and there is nothing in the Bill that will suddenly change everything — and, what is more, people know that.
What does the Bill do? I suppose that it is very good of the Government to propose in the Bill that fundholding be abolished when they have already abolished it. I suppose that it is very good of them to bother to ask for parliamentary consent after the event, but, first and foremost, the Bill abolishes choice, diversity and flexibility. It dragoons general practitioners into massive collectives. Whether their members like it or not, they will have to follow the patterns of referrals and the patterns set down by the committee governing the collective, and they will not have the choice that they would have had as fundholders.
The Secretary of State tried to say that fundholding was not popular. Perhaps he will tell us, then, why, when we made fundholding entirely voluntary and did not dragoon anyone into it, 60 per cent. of GPs were fundholders, or had applications outstanding to become fundholders, at the time that we left office. If fundholding was so unpopular, why did 60 per cent. of GPs actively join it or want to join it when there was no compulsion, as there would be if the Bill were passed?

Dr. Phyllis Starkey: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Miss Widdecombe: No. I have made it clear that I am making progress. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State said at one stage this afternoon that he wanted to get on; by the time that he sat down, we were still waiting for him to get on to the Bill. I have at least tried to address the issues in the Bill. I shall now address some of the background about which the Secretary of State made such a performance in his presentation.
First, waiting lists are not falling. The number of people waiting to see a consultant has increased by 222,000 since the Government came to office. That is not just a statistic because until people have seen a consultant, the urgency


of their need for an operation cannot possibly be assessed. The Secretary of State has presided over a situation in which keeping down the list of those waiting to have their operation has been achieved by slowing down the rate at which patients enter the list, and by having a massive increase of nearly 250,000 patients waiting to discover whether they can get on to the list in the first place.
When I raise these matters, the Secretary of State has two or three defences. First, he says, "That may be true, but the numbers on out-patient waiting lists were increasing under the Conservatives." According to figures published by the previous Government — published in exactly the same way as the right hon. Gentleman publishes figures — there were 264,000 people waiting to see a consultant in September 1996 and 247,000 — a fall — in March 1997. From the 247.000 that we left the right hon. Gentleman, he has increased the number to 468,000.
The second defence that the right hon. Gentleman often advances is, "Yes, it is true that the numbers are increasing, but it is also true that we are treating more patients." It is true that more patients are being treated, but it is true also that in 1995 — 96, we Conservatives were treating 4 million more patients than we had been in 1979. The increase was not a few tens of thousands. Even that increase did not solve all the problems. It did not eliminate all the lists and it did not get rid of waiting times. The fact that more patients are being treated under the right hon. Gentleman proves nothing other than that ever since its inception, the national health service has quite regularly increased the number of patients treated. The right hon. Gentleman is not addressing the problem of the increase of 250,000 people who are waiting to see their consultant in the first place.
The third defence is, "The problem has nothing to do with the waiting list initiative", but it has. I shall quote from a letter that has been circulated to all consultants in the Salisbury health care NHS trust from the chief executive, who writes:
Despite having made good progress … waiting list numbers rose … by some 200 more than anticipated.

He adds:
To achieve our year end target … we need to reduce our current waiting list numbers
by about 500. He states that
"there are only three realistic options".
The first option is:
Reduce the numbers coming onto the list.
That is clearly set out. That is the way in which the numbers on lists are reduced. Another option is:
Use of the private sector.
That is a commendable option.
If the reduction in the number on waiting lists means that people who have been waiting are being treated by the NHS, that is to be welcomed. I have no doubt that some of the fall will have been brought about in that way. However, if it is being achieved by slowing the rate at which people enter the lists, or by people becoming so fed up that they go to the private sector or so ill that they die before receiving treatment, that is not such a wonderful achievement.
Bearing in mind that it was an early pledge to get the lists down to 100,000 below the level that we had left, it has taken the Secretary of State half a Parliament to get down to the level that we left — and with the sort of manipulation that I have been discussing. That is not—

Ms Julia Drown: rose —

Miss Widdecombe: sit down for a moment please. I will not give way for the moment.
That is not a record of which the Secretary —

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. May I say to the right hon. Lady that it will probably be better if she decides whether to take interventions, and indicates clearly whether she will do so or not, and leaves the rest to me?

Miss Widdecombe: Quite so, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I will do that.
That is not a record of which the Secretary of State can be proud.
Similarly, I have in front of me a letter from the Southampton general hospital trust saying straightforwardly that the surgical waiting list has trebled
"since the present Government came to power".
The fact is that there is no magic wand solution that will simply reduce waiting lists. There are many ways of manipulating those lists and the statistics, and there are many ways of triumphantly announcing the statistics, but in the end, if a genuine improvement has not been achieved, patients are being betrayed. Also being betrayed are the doctors and the nurses, who are being obliged to apply distorted clinical priorities to assist that manipulation.
Against that background, I would have hoped that the Government would have had the courage to address in the Bill some of those fundamental problems and to have tried to find new, exciting ways of increasing the resources available to the NHS. The Secretary of State says, very proudly, that the private sector must be regulated, but the House of Lords has forced that upon him, through a Conservative amendment that has applied to the private as well as the public sector the health improvement initiatives that he says he is introducing into the Bill.
The Secretary of State boasts that he will have the biggest hospital building programme in history. We had the biggest hospital programme in history. If he achieves his aspiration to outstrip that, I shall be very pleased, but I shall be even more pleased if he acknowledges that he will do that largely through the private finance initiative, which we introduced and set up. That is the use of the private sector.

Mr. Dobson: If the Tories made such a success of the PFI for major hospital projects, why did they never manage to get one started and why, with their agreement, did we have to clarify the law, which they claimed they had clarified previously? They spent £ 33 million on consultants — not medical consultants, but lawyers, accountants and God knows who — and they never got one hospital built. We are getting 15 hospitals built as a result of sorting out the mess we inherited.

Miss Widdecombe: First, we built more hospitals than ever before in British history. Secondly, when we set up
the PFI, the Secretary of State's party opposed it root and branch, although it has now decided that it is the only way forward. Yes, when we set up the PFI, we had difficulties, which the then Opposition were not willing to help us solve, but we got to a point where they were solved and the PFI was in readiness when the right hon. Gentleman took over.
Why does not the right hon. Gentleman thank us for setting up the PFI? If it is right to use the private sector in that sort of instance, if it is right for consultants to use the private sector to get their lists down and if it is right for certain facilities to be shared with the private sector, why will not he expand that and use the considerable resources of the private sector for the benefit of the NHS?
The problem with the right hon. Gentleman is that his approach to this matter is that of the dinosaur. In every other Department, partnership with the private sector is now a fact of everyday life. In many Departments, it is being extended beyond anything introduced by the Conservative Government. But apparently, uniquely, in health matters, the Secretary of State wants to marginalise the private sector, giving it no major role.

Mr. Bercow: In reflecting upon the Secretary of State's attitude to the Bill, is my right hon. Friend not reminded of a former leader of the Labour party and distinguished parliamentarian, Michael Foot, who, in a conversation some years ago, said, "Don't give me facts, they only serve to confuse my arguments."?

Miss Widdecombe: I am reminded of many things when I look at the Secretary of State. but mostly I am reminded of desperation — sheer desperation. So desperate is he, that he could not even address the Bill when he came to the House to present it. So desperate is he, that he has to manipulate the waiting lists to say that he is moving towards achieving a pledge that was supposed to be achieved early, but, after half a Parliament, is nowhere near being met.

Dr. Tony Wright: rose—

Ms Drown: rose —

Miss Widdecombe: I have an embarrassment of riches. I shall go for the doctor.

Dr. Wright: I have been listening carefully to the right hon. Lady's remarks and trying to follow them. She gives a terrifying performance. There is certainly something of the fright about her. The right hon. Lady argues that there are dispossessed people whose treatments will be so expensive that the NHS will not be able to afford them. Exactly how will those desperate, dispossessed people be able to obtain treatment somewhere else?

Miss Widdecombe: That is the whole point. The whole point of what we are saying is that, if the private sector shares some of the strain with the NHS, the NHS will be freed up to look after the dispossessed. Instead, the Secretary of State wants to keep them dispossessed, and to increase their number and the range of treatments and drugs from which they are dispossessed. That is the

Government's policy. I cannot imagine that it is one of which the hon. Gentleman is proud, but at least now he may understand what I have been saying.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Miss Widdecombe: It might be for your convenience, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and for the convenience of the House, if I say that I shall make further progress before giving way. Compared with the Secretary of State, who refused to give way almost consistently throughout his speech, there has been a proper debate from the Conservative Benches today.
The Bill sets up primary care trusts, but it does not even contain a definition of one. The noble Baroness Hayman was rather embarrassed in the other place when she had to say that the Government would work out a definition. The Secretary of State has introduced a Bill setting up primary care trusts with no adequate definition of such trusts. I am not surprised that he does not address a Bill that does not even tell us what it is about.
This is a defective Bill, of which we have had a defective presentation by the Secretary of State. The Government have a defective health policy which has resulted in increasing numbers of dispossessed, manipulated waiting lists, longer waiting lists of people waiting to see a consultant and a winter crisis, yet still the Secretary of State tries to pretend that there is something new, modern and vibrant about the declining NHS over which he presides.
I will not say that the Secretary of State's language has been deceptive throughout, because you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, might call me to order, but it has certainly not portrayed an accurate picture. We all remember the right hon. Gentleman standing up in the House in great triumph saying, "I am providing 7,000 extra doctors". Everyone became very excited until he had to admit that they were just the doctors coming through medical school in the usual way, not "extra" at all.
There is nothing extra for any NHS patient in the whole of the Bill. There is nothing extra for any NHS patient in the whole of the Government's health policy. However, there is much less. There is much less choice for a patient's general practitioner to refer outside the area or to particular consultants.

Mr. Dobson: That is not true.

Miss Widdecombe: It is true, because whereas a fundholding GP could have decided that course of action for himself, a member of a primary care group will be able to do so only if the committee of that group has established that pattern. The right hon. Gentleman has just given an inaccurate portrayal of what PCGs will do.
We have frequently asked the right hon. Gentleman to guarantee that the choices and services that are now available to patients of fundholders will be available when PCGs are up and running. They are now up and running, and he has still not been able to guarantee that such choices, services and flexibility will be available. Why not? Because quite patently in some parts of the country — the evidence is flowing in — they are no longer available. There is less for NHS patients.
There will be fewer treatments and drugs available to NHS patients when NICE does its nasty, ugly work. There will be less available to patients when pricing policy


drives some drugs from the market and when GPs find for the first time that their budgets are cash limited. That is what the Bill provides.
The right hon. Gentleman talks about removing bureaucracy. It will cost £ 150 million to set up the PCG bureaucracy. He talks about cost-effectiveness. I hope that NHS Direct works, but studies currently show that the average NHS Direct call costs — 20 whereas a call from a GP surgery costs £ 3, so there is not even a saving that can be passed on for the benefit of the NHS patient.
This ineffective, defective Bill does not deal with the real problems of the NHS. It does nothing to address the single biggest problem that has eaten away at the NHS from its inception — it was recognised by Nye Bevan himself, but is denied by the Government. The NHS cannot and never has been able to do it all. On top of increased resources from Government — which will always be provided under successive Governments — I want to find fresh ways of putting extra resources, facilities and expertise at the disposal of the NHS for the benefit of patients.
The Secretary of State has sat there and laughed at those patients. He has denied that the dispossessed are dispossessed. He pretends to be spending money that he is not spending, and to be creating extra doctors who are not being created. In the end, he will have to face a reckoning, because the true test of people's satisfaction with the NHS is not Government rhetoric, but patients' own experience. A quarter of a million more patients who are waiting to see a consultant have their own experience. Patients of former fundholders who are now unable to get the same services have their own experience. Patients coming off the lists because they are so desperate that they go private even if they do not want to have their own experience.
Those people know that the Government are not delivering on the NHS. The Secretary of State should come to the Dispatch Box and apologise for what must have been the most insulting performance that the House has witnessed in some years.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next speaker, I remind hon. Members that all Back-Bench speeches will be limited to 10 minutes.

Mr. Kevin Barron: I hope to stick to that time limit, Mr. Deputy Speaker. First, however, let me correct what the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) said about the PFI and our attitude when we were in opposition. The Conservative Government made a complete hash of the PFI —

Mr. Michael Fabricant: We did not.

Mr. Barron: Will the hon. Gentleman keep quiet for a few minutes? The Conservative Government did nothing at all. They did not set up a single hospital under the PFI. They introduced a Bill —

Mr. Fabricant: You voted against it.

Mr. Barron: Will the hon. Gentleman keep quiet? You introduced a Bill —

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Hon. Members must use the correct parliamentary language. I suggest that the House should settle down.

Mr. Barron: The last Government introduced a Bill called, if memory serves me correctly, the National Health Service (Residual Liabilities) Bill. The Secretary of State and the Minister who were in charge of that Bill are present now. It was in Committee for two or three weeks at the most. We co-operated fully with the Government, and the Bill completed its stages in the House, but when those in the private sector had another look at it, they said, "It is not good enough: you will have to come back with something else."
About three weeks before the general election campaign, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) offered another Bill to the then shadow health team in the hope that they would endorse it promptly and allow its speedy passage, because the Conservatives could not get anything started with the PFI. In the end, he did not give us that Bill, although we would have gladly taken the matter off his hands, because he did not dare to go public about the mess that the Conservatives had made in regard to the PFI. The present Government have embarked on the biggest programme of building major NHS hospitals for years, because the last Government did not know how to handle the private sector in terms of the PFI.
The Bill makes major changes. I do not know how many Bills providing for structural change in the NHS we have debated when I have been in the Chamber, but there must have been many since my arrival in the House in 1983. It is a great pity that the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald does not understand some of the changes in this Bill; I hope to tell her at some stage what I think is likely to happen.
In fact, I think that the NHS will experience a cultural change. That will not happen overnight — it will take many years — but I believe that aspects of it will challenge parts of the service, although if the service does not change it will not be capable of doing in the next century what it has done in the second half of this one. If it is to retain the admiration and support of its patients and the taxpayer, it must recognise the need for it to change to meet both the expectations of patients and advances in medical science.
Through the media, patients are becoming increasingly aware of new advances on both a national and an international scale. As they become more knowledgeable, they will expect the best treatments that are available. They will want to know more about the latest drug on the market, and how it could affect them. Professionals in the NHS will have to meet those new demands, and the Bill rightly aims to create a more patient-led service.
For the first time, a Government are introducing a statutory duty to implement a "quality of care". It beggars belief that any Member should make it clear from the Dispatch Box that he or she does not recognise the fundamental change that such a duty will make to health care. No one who does not recognise that can have read the Bill properly.
Making quality a driving force for decision making at all levels of the service should guarantee clinical excellence for all patients. I oppose rationing in the NHS, and I hope that every other hon. Member does as well. The Bill will enable us to get rid of it, by ensuring clinical
excellence for all patients. The establishment of the Commission for Health Improvement is another step forward, although it was dismissed by the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald, who seems to oppose the idea of clinical improvement in the NHS. That is ridiculous.
Independent assessment of local work to improve quality should have been introduced years ago, and the use of a wide range of expertise and experience to investigate problems is also overdue. It should be welcomed by all who work in the NHS. It is clear — my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State gave a couple of examples — that past performance has been variable. People have been slow to detect and act on lapses in quality, and that is not acceptable.
The introduction of evidence-based national service frameworks should ensure consistent access to services and quality care throughout the country by setting national standards, and defining patterns and levels of care in relation to specific diseases or parts of the service. My right hon. Friend said that coronary heart disease and mental illness would be among the first conditions to be dealt with by the frameworks, which will be based on the Calman Hine model for the provision of cancer care. The recommendations of what was then the Calman committee were published in 1995. The final recommendation states:
The data suggest that the impact of specialised care for common cancers, and probably for many cancers, can increase long term survival by 5-10 per cent., a very important clinical outcome.
People reading that report might have thought that the NHS could continue to offer all services in all district general hospitals, as it has for years, but the report made it clear that that should end. I am pleased to say that it has in regard to cancer, but it should end in other contexts as well. We should ensure that our clinicians do the best that they can for every patient, regardless of where the service is being delivered. If Opposition Front Benchers are really concerned about what is happening, or should be happening, in our health service, they will comment on that.
The Bill will provide a new system of clinical governance to ensure that there is continued improvement in NHS trusts and primary care bodies. That is what I look for, as a patient, and what other NHS patients want. We are not interested in arguments about structures.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence will be clinician-led. It will give a strong lead, in terms of both clinical services and cost-effectiveness. It will issue new guidelines for the NHS, putting an end to all the mixed messages that people receive about new drugs. How many hon. Members have sat in a doctor's waiting room behind a salesman who wants to sell another message about how his drug is better than those that the doctor already has?
The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) looks confused. Let me tell him that I have sat in my doctor's surgery, and have seen salesmen waiting to sell their drugs. It is about time that there was a better way of conveying information to doctors.
We should be concerned about new drugs and treatments. Those in the NHS should understand the clinical effectiveness of drugs better, so that the decisions that are made are the best for patients. A recognition of cost-effectiveness will not necessarily mean the cheapest

treatment: in certain circumstances, it could mean that NICE will recommend the most expensive treatment if that is best for the patient. We should welcome that, however, as should the pharmaceutical industry.
It is clear that some drugs benefit only a small minority of people who suffer from a particular condition. The challenge is to identify those who are assisted by the intervention. Expecting the NHS to pay for expensive products that do not work will just bring the pharmaceutical industry, and the NHS, into disrepute. I think that the industry realises that it must sort that out, although I realise that it will not be an easy task. We all know that beta interferon is likely to help approximately 10 per cent. of multiple sclerosis sufferers, but it is more difficult to identify that 10 per cent. That is the real challenge for the pharmaceutical industry and the NHS — and. indeed, for NICE — and it is a challenge that we should support.
I must say to the right hon. Lady —

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's time is up.

6 pm

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The Secretary of State for Health attracted to the Chamber three Conservative Members who are former Secretaries of State for Health. We should all have come here out of sympathy with the Secretary of State because his task is very hard, if it is done properly: to prioritise the service and to produce steady development within finite means when demands are ever burgeoning. I regret to say that we were all drawn here by the fact that, in tackling his task, the Secretary of State is getting into a bigger and bigger mess. We all fear that, in relation to how the health service will perform, he is building up for himself considerable problems in the medium term. Our constituents will all feel that winter by winter, as the crises start to reoccur in the system.
In 10 minutes, I have no time to answer all the points in the Secretary of State's speech, but I do not wish to do so; he sacrificed any sympathy that he might have had from me. He has a standard Opposition-based rant on what the health service was like when he took over. On every occasion he gives an extremely clever, partial and disingenuous presentation of the money that he says that he has, and what he is doing. On each occasion he produces an announcement — today, it was on NHS Direct — to distract the journalists from what the Government are doing. He made only partial references to the Bill.
The reason why the Secretary of State is getting into a mess is that, as he will discover, however skilful the rhetoric, however good the special advisers and press presentation, he may fool people for a bit, but it is what he does to the health service that will come back to live with him. He will find that the Bill will do considerable harm.
I anticipate my criticisms by stating what I welcome about the Bill. It does not reverse the reforms of the previous Government. It does not repeal the internal market or anything like it, although that is not a phrase that I would ever use to describe it. I am glad that the purchaser-provider divide is kept completely intact. No doubt it is regarded as clever that contracts are now described as "collaborative understandings", but they are


still there between purchasers and providers. The Secretary of State is even extending the number of NHS trusts on the provider side.
The Bill alters what we used to call in the jargon — it is only jargon — the purchasing side: the commissioning of health care on behalf of the patient. The Secretary of State is moving away from fundholding into new primary care groups, which, as I hope to show, are a wholly undesirable change in the system and will, in the long run, have only adverse effects.
I say in passing — I have no time to say more — that I welcome the fact that elements of quality control are built into the Bill. We began that when we introduced clinical audit into our reforms. When we were in office, we spent our whole time trying to build a more patient-oriented service, and better management of clinical practice and quality, with the support of the best people in the profession.
An attempt is being made to produce further improvement in performance management, although it is being done in an odd way. We have new acronyms and we have new quangos in the acronym-ridden national health service — CHIMP will now join NICE. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) is right to say that we are not sure what NICE and CHIMP will wind up doing, but they at least are commendable.
Overall, my judgment of the Bill is that it is centralising in its ambitions, which is a serious mistake in such a giant service: the biggest employer and the biggest public service in western Europe. In its changes to the purchaser-provider divide, the Bill is bureaucratic in the extreme. As the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) said, that will lead to cultural change on the ground. That change will be a stifling of individual initiative by the best go-ahead general practitioners, because that practice will be made more difficult because those GPs will be locked into a group with people who will not want to be as innovative as them.
The best general practitioners will have to proceed at the pace of the slowest as they try to develop the primary care system. The decision-making provisions in the Bill go back to the worst of the old NHS. Slow, expensive decision making will be conducted by the large committees that are being re-established. I fear that they will not function well.
Primary care must continue to develop. Every Minister with responsibility for health knows that developing primary services continues to be one of the major priorities in trying to solve the conundrum of how to meet rising demand out of finite resources. However, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald, I fear that primary care will go through a process of levelling down, rather than levelling up, for quite a period once the primary care groups come in.
I concentrate on the new primary care groups and the end of fundholding; there are other important parts of the Bill about which I have not time to talk. I will not express an opinion on the parts of the Bill that concern the PPRS — the pharmaceutical price regulation scheme — and drug cost provisions. If I did so, I would have to declare an outside interest as chairman of a pharmaceutical wholesale company. 1 make only one comment, which is faintly relevant. One detailed aspect of the primary care groups has been sadly neglected: the role of the

pharmacists as a profession. The fact that they will have no real involvement in the new groups is not to the advantage of patients.
Primary care groups are based on the abolition of general practice fundholding. Fundholding was a success. One of the key things that the Secretary of State tried to deny was that we worked to ensure — the best reforms do it — that those who carried out the reforms had ownership of the reforms themselves. The fundholders were volunteers and they were largely enthusiasts.
Almost 60 per cent. of GPs wished to become fundholders. If we had achieved 100 per cent. GP fundholding, as we did with NHS trusts, the Government would never have dared to reverse the policy. They are going to great and unnecessary lengths to reverse it now. It put family doctors in the driving seat in raising the standard of care in their locality. It gave them new and unprecedented influence over the quality of and access to hospital-based services. It enabled them to concentrate on the needs of their own patients. The benefits from the growing number of fundholders were spreading to the rest of the service.
In the short time I have left, I mention specifically what I think are the dangers of the new primary care groups. First, they will level the service down. I will not repeat what my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald has said. The best fundholders developed set-ups in their practices that were unprecedented in the NHS: physiotherapy in the practice, consultants coming in for special in-house sessions to deal with people in the surgery, better facilities than ever before for minor surgery by GPs. In many cases, after the Bill, those things will be squeezed out in some practices by constraints on the budget of the primary care group as a whole.
A second thing will be lost. Compared with the old fundholders, GPs in the new groups will lack the clout and influence over colleagues in hospital-based and community-based NHS services; those fundholders were such a beneficial influence on behalf of patients.
Practitioners' incentive to achieve efficient practice will be lost in a particular practice because money will be distributed according to historic spending patterns — to practices as a whole. Indeed, the way in which the money is being distributed to the groups rewards the more inefficient practitioners. They will get their historic level of spending, and some more efficient practitioners will be penalised. Under the system, every practitioner will be handicapped by the most difficult GPs in the slowest practices.
The biggest problem in some primary care groups will be that some GPs will simply not be interested in being involved in such management and development of the service. Keen GPs will probably get themselves elected on to the boards, but they will have no way in which to stop the less keen from inhibiting what they can do. That is a serious problem. The cash-limited budgets that will be imposed on those large, almost unmanageable blocks of GP practices will give rise to particular difficulties, especially as prescribing costs will be imposed on the groups, which will have no ability to hold to account those whose prescribing habits start to exceed the budget.
My biggest sadness is that GPs will lose that commitment to their own patients and practice and the incentive to drive improvements, which led to benefits on the ground.
I agree with a local GP, Dr. Simon Fradd, who is deputy chairman of the British Medical Association's GP practitioner committee. He says that the policy is equivalent to rationing and will lead to the refusal of service. I also agree with Professor Maynard, the professor of health service management at York university, who says the same: GPs will be put in a position where they will have to ration care. I hope that I am wrong.
I take part in health debates because I want the national health service to survive and succeed. However, the Government's party political rhetoric, the partial presentation of the facts, and Bills such as this one will make things worse.

Mr. David Hinchliffe: I should like very warmly to welcome the main thrust of the Health Bill, particularly its three key provisions on quality of provision, emphasising the role of primary care, and especially the long-overdue abolition of the internal market.
When the history of this phase of the national health service is written, the Bill will be remembered as the end of the privatisation by stealth attempted by the Tories over the past 25 years. I say 25 years because I was working in social services 25 years ago, when Sir Keith Joseph was the Secretary of State and introduced the changes removing the democratic element in health provision from local government to health authorities. His view was that the market had an important role in health provision. Gradually, over the past 25 years, when the Tories were in power, they moved increasingly in the direction of allowing the market to run health care. Current Tory Front Benchers have made it quite clear that they are firmly wedded to the market in health — which is profoundly opposed by most civilised people in the United Kingdom, whatever their politics.
When the Thatcher Government were elected, in 1979, they realised that the British people would not vote for privatisation of the health service — because a vast, cross-party majority of the British electorate support the central tenets of the national health service, as they have done since the service was started in the 1940s. The Tories therefore began the process of privatisation by stealth, with a range of measures that I should like to mention briefly.
The first measure to be introduced, in the early 1980s. was general management. Management concepts were wheeled into the national health service that were totally alien to it. More importantly, people from business were wheeled in, although they had absolutely no knowledge of the NHS. A biscuit manager was brought in as the general manager of my health authority, and the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) may well recall the consequent problems that we had in Wakefield.
The previous Government created a culture of paying for care. Year after year, prescription charges were hiked way above inflation. The Health and Medicines Act 1988 introduced charges for eyesight and dental checks and for preventive health checks. For older people, there were also tax concessions on private medicine, as the previous Government believed that such an incentive should be

introduced to encourage ever more people into the private sector. The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) nods. He is in favour of people using the private sector.
The previous Government also instituted the wholesale privatisation of community care. I have received computations from the Library showing that, in the 10 years before introduction of the 1993 community care changes,£10 billion of social security resources were pumped into the private residential and nursing home sector. At the same time as there was a huge expansion in construction of private nursing and care homes, there was a deliberate run down of NHS provision for older people.
The Bill will reverse that privatisation process. I therefore believe that, in many respects, the Bill's passage will be a major landmark in making the NHS once again conform to Bevan's vision for it.
The National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 introduced the internal market. During its passage, several Conservative Members made it clear that they believed that the internal market was only a prelude to moving further towards a market system, in which the vast majority of patients would be expected to have private insurance, with only a state safety net for those without it, as in the United States.
The end result—regardless of what the Tories' reasoned amendment to this Bill states about fundholding—was a two-tier system. In my constituency, I had people who were life-long Tory voters but who objected fundamentally to the fundholding system, which provided them with second-class treatment. The names and addresses of those who came to see me about the way in which the fundholding system operated and impacted on their specific treatment needs are on record.
I praise the Tories for knowing what they believe in and pursuing those beliefs. Although they were absolutely hammered on the NHS at the general election, they still believe in moving us ever closer towards private health care. In every one of her speeches and interviews, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) has said, "Make more use of the private sector." A couple of weeks ago, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton made a major speech—in which I was given the great honour of a mention or two—the central thrust of which was that, "We can't afford to pay for a national health service. Get people into the private sector."
When talking about moving NHS patients into the private sector, Tory Members fail to deal with one specific difficulty: the private sector is staffed entirely by those who were trained in the NHS. Therefore, the more the private sector develops, the more that the NHS will be denuded of staff. They fail also to appreciate—as the Health Committee is discovering in its inquiries—that the quality of care in the private sector sometimes leaves much to be desired.
I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald has left the Chamber. She mentioned three categories of the dispossessed, but failed to mention a fourth one—NHS patients who wait patiently on a NHS waiting list, until someone from the private sector queue


jumps, putting everyone back a place. Those people do not have access to the treatment that they need because of queue jumping by people from the private sector.

Mr. Alan Duncan: Where does that happen?

Mr. Hinchliffe: There is plenty of evidence of it. The hon. Gentleman need not worry, as I could give him plenty of examples.
In the few minutes that I have left to speak, I should like to concentrate on a few key matters. As I said, I welcome the Bill's concentration on the quality of provision. In my own constituency, I have been concerned that, in a minority of cases, patients have had a very raw deal from the health service and not received answers to some of their medical problems.
As I also said, I welcome the Bill's emphasis on primary care. However, I should like to mention one specific concern. I believe that the Bill's vision of involving the social services should go much further, and follow the model provided by Northern Ireland, where there are one-stop shops in general practitioners' surgeries. Northern Ireland's health centres genuinely offer access to child protection, home care, district nurses and various professionals other than GPs. I worked, 25 years ago, as a GP-attached social worker. Gradually, we are returning to that system, which worked so well but was damaged by the reforms introduced in 1974 by the Conservatives.
I hope that one specific aspect of the Bill—on governance of the NHS—will be dealt with in Committee. I have previously raised concerns about the democratic deficit in the health service, and believe that one reason why some patients sometimes misuse the NHS—by not turning up for appointments, for example—is that they lack a feeling of personal ownership of the service. Within the primary care groups, trusts and the overall service, we shall have to consider how to involve patients in the service, as they currently are not.
I have also previously expressed my disappointment at the continuation of the system of appointment of officials which was so discredited under the previous Government. Although those who currently hold appointments usually believe in the health service, we still have to ensure that local people who use the service are involved in decisions on the service's direction.
A key difference between the Government and the Opposition is demonstrated by the Bill's replacement of the duty to compete with the duty of co-operation. It is a fundamental difference between the two sides. I think that the vast majority of people in the United Kingdom—Tories included—believe that the NHS is about co-operation, collaboration and working together. I wish the Bill well in its passage through the House.

Mr. Simon Hughes: Almost two years ago today—when we were about 14 days out from the general election—the Labour leader and Labour spokespeople said that there were only 14 days left for the country to decide whether it wanted to save the national health service. Many of us thought then that we could be well disposed towards Labour's commitment to the NHS. We would rather have

done what was necessary ourselves, but if we could not be in power, at least Labour would be bold and resolute, and would make flagship proposals to transform our struggling national health service for the better.

Mr. Patrick Hall: Correct.

Mr. Hughes: If the Bill is supposed to be the great, bold, dramatic flagship that the hon. Gentleman implies, he should be sorely disappointed. It is a timid little measure. Although some things in it are timely and welcome—as my colleagues in the other place have said, we support those—there is much more that the Government should and could do. Sadly, none of that is in the Bill.
The Government started off on the wrong tack by saying that their first priority, before any legislation, would be the reduction of waiting lists. There is nothing about that in the Bill, perhaps because the target was wrong anyway. Even if it had been the right target, the bold promise of a 100,000 reduction is still some way off. The figure is down by 50,000 in England, so one in 23 people fewer are waiting; really successful! One in 14 people fewer are waiting in Scotland, and in Wales more people are waiting than when Labour came to office. So far, therefore, there has hardly been a dramatic change.
The Secretary of State said that the Government inherited a health service in deficit, but if we look round the country we see plenty of health authorities that have started the new financial year this month in deficit.
The Secretary of State also said that Labour had inherited a health service in which there were many parts of the country where one could not find a dentist. I was in Cornwall the other day with my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed), and my colleagues there have just launched a campaign to try to get a decent number of dentists almost anywhere in the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Jackie Ballard) keeps trying to make it clear to the Government that although everybody identified the lack of dentists as a major issue, there has hardly been any significant change in numbers.
There was nothing in the Labour manifesto about the need for more staff in the health service. There was no commitment to employing more nurses or doctors, although everyone else knew that there was a major crisis. We looked for dramatic responses.
By contrast, some of the things that have happened were not mentioned in the Labour manifesto. NHS Direct must have been dreamed up after 1 May 1997.

Mr. Stephen Dorrell: They inherited it.

Mr. Hughes: The right hon. Gentleman, a former Secretary of State for Health, says that the Government inherited the proposal. It certainly was not in the Labour manifesto.

Mr. Dorrell: It was in ours.

Mr. Hughes: Indeed it was, as the right hon. Gentleman fairly says. The 20 walk-in surgeries were not in the Labour manifesto, either.
Labour's great commitment was that the two-tier health service would go, and that there would be an end to the internal market. In one sense the two-tier service will go, in that the Bill will end the division between fundholding and non-fundholding. We welcome that. However, a greater concern for most people is the patchwork nature of the health service. People who live in one place have access to treatment that people who live elsewhere cannot get.
That problem has not disappeared, and nothing in the Bill will make it disappear. For someone waiting for beta interferon or in vitro fertilisation, that is the issue that matters. It is no good having a national health service theoretically available to all, if it is not available to all in the place where one lives. That is a multi-tier health service.
The Prime Minister said that the internal market would end, but as the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), another former Secretary of State for Health, rightly said, that has not happened. The internal market is still here; there are still purchasers and providers. Indeed, there will be more people in that equation. Of course, some of the arrangements will be different, but the internal market will not have gone away.
When the Prime Minister was speaking in the debate on the Queen's Speech, I tackled him about rationing. He said that Labour had proposed the best framework in which to determine priorities. Now, however, although everybody else in the country says that the big issue is how we decide what the NHS should do, how we should pay for it, and why all treatment is not available everywhere, and asks, "Isn't that rationing?" the Government say, "There is no rationing; that is a delusion."
None the less, the Government have made a proposal to deal with the problem that they say does not exist. It is not, of course, to be dealt with by involving the public, because that would be far too dangerous; the public might want to express a view.
When my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) spoke in response to the Queen's Speech, he set out the view that we hold today, as we did then—the same view as we have formed about the Bill throughout its progress both through the other place and here.
For example, all the professionals in England could have been involved in the process, but only some of them have been invited to the table. In Wales, a wider invitation has been sent out for people to take part in the new Labour NHS.
The Government could also have been bold and followed the logic of all the recommendations from the Select Committee on Health, which is chaired by the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) and includes my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Dr. Brand), about merging health and social services. The logic of that proposal cries out to be heard.
However, there is only one little proposal about health and social services consulting a bit more. They must still keep two separate managements running two separate regimes, offering services that often overlap, although they are charged for differently. There is no proposal to change that, although I can tell Labour Members that,

logically, this change will be made. As with much that the Labour party does, the Government will come to the conclusion much later than others who have thought about the subject. For instance, the Select Committee, like the Liberal Democrats, has realised for some time what the right policy is.
There is nothing in the Bill about one of the issues that we have spent much of the last two years talking about: how do we recruit the people to provide a quality health service? We can produce the most wonderful statements about quality, but if we do not have the staff we will not get the quality either.
There could have been extra incentives to recruit people and encourage them to be trainees, or to be undergraduates in nursing, physiotherapy or medicine—but there is nothing in the Bill about that. There is nothing about recruitment and retention, nothing about rationing and nothing about resources.
It might be said that resources are dealt with elsewhere in the parliamentary timetable. That is true, but there could have been something in the Bill that tried to answer the big question about the health service: how do we link the resources with the services that the NHS should provide? Of that there is not a word.
The Conservative contribution, made by the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), who is not now in the Chamber, was interesting. As my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight said at the time, sotto voce, there was something of the Barbara Woodhouse of the House of Commons about the right hon. Lady when she instructed everyone to sit down and be quiet as she set out her prescription for the NHS.
As I understand it, there are six Tory criticisms of the Bill. The first is that it removes the choice for doctor and patient to send the patient where they think he or she should go. There is some truth in that criticism, and although the amendment made in the House of Lords was a welcome move in the right direction, it was left pretty unclear what the Government think should happen. We shall press them further on that subject.
The Tories also criticise the end of fundholding. We do not. We think that there should be only one type of doctor's practice, so that people who go to a surgery should not get better or worse treatment, depending on what sort of doctor is there. Such a regime was the legacy of the period when the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe was Secretary of State.
The Tories say that there is unnecessary and expensive bureaucracy. That is a bit rich, coming from them. They set up the most bureaucratic health service that we have ever had, so their criticism is not easy to support. They also say, "We cannot have any more upheaval." That, too, is a bit rich. Apparently Tory upheaval is fine, but if it is anyone else's upheaval, that is not so good. I lived through the Tory health service reforms, such as the creation of the internal market—and the poll tax too—so I am not sure that people will believe what the Tories say about upheaval.
There was another argument about the competitiveness of the pharmaceutical industry being undermined. There is a danger of that happening, and we are alive to it; I shall say more later. The Tories also say that the powers of the Secretary of State are being centralised. That is true. One of the great themes of the Bill is providing more


power for the Secretary of State and less power for the patient, less power for the people. That is a fundamental flaw.
Over the past two years many of the things that could have been done either have not been done or have been done too late. Spending plans were on hold for nearly 24 months. Staff pay was staged in year one, and many employees have not caught up in year two. The staffing crisis was not addressed for 20 months. As often happens, the Government have been slow to get up and move.
Then the Government are desperate to be seen to be doing things, even if they have not quite thought through how their actions relate to their other policies. We heard a good example of that today in the statement by the Prime Minister. Only recently have the Government realised that the total waiting time between someone realising that they need treatment and getting it matters. That means not just in-patient waiting time—the time that someone waits to obtain treatment—but the time that they wait to see a consultant in the first place.
The Government have only just realised that we have a terrible staffing crisis in the health service. I am not sure that they will be able to act in time to do something about it. Ideas such as walk-in high street surgeries and NHS Direct are fine as far as they go, but no one has thought through how they integrate with the local health service and work with the other structures, such as primary care trusts and groups, that are being set up; or how to ensure that the new services do not result in doctors, who are in short supply, being attracted away from areas where they are needed and cannot be replaced.
We are in favour of innovation. We are in favour of nurses sharing the leadership of local community health groups with doctors. We are in favour of collaboration among professionals—all of them. We are in favour of co-operatives of doctors doing out-of-hours services. We are in favour of telephone advice in the right place, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) said earlier, we must recognise that it has limited value. We are in favour of more self-medication, including alternative therapies. We are in favour of pharmacies having a proper recognised role. We are in favour of the whole range of NHS services, but there should be democratic accountability.
The Government have missed a great opportunity to bring local health services and local social services together under democratically accountable elected bodies. That would enable the public to participate in decisions, rather than excluding them. The great hidden danger, to which the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe referred, is that those services will be cash-limited and the public will not be able to do anything about it. It is no good giving a lot of money in theory to the health service to be dished out around the country if social services are being stretched and capped and cannot do the job that is expected of them.
There is not a word in the Bill about regional health services. They exist. There are regional health authorities, but nobody elects them or has any say on strategic planning; they are just appointed. The Bill also fails to provide any greater democratic control at national level in the four countries of the UK, which is where the health service will be controlled after May. Recent figures show a worrying trend for the two years the Government have been in office. The number of recognised Labour party

people appointed to non-executive posts in health trusts in England has gone up from 8 to 226—an increase from 0.3 per cent. to 9.6 per cent. Needless to say, the other parties are considerably behind.
There are many amendments that we would like the Government to accept, but we fear that they will not. We would like to remove the difficulty of cash-limiting from primary care groups and trusts and make them accountable, but we fear that the Government will not do that. We would like a better balance of the professions in the primary care trusts so that the chair and the majority—or largest minority—of places are not always reserved for doctors if they want them. That is the deal that the Government made to get the proposals past the doctors. We would like to know why the requirements for quality of care do not apply to health authorities and primary care groups as well as to trusts. We want a commission that looks at the quality of care—we have argued for that for years—but it should be truly independent and authoritative and there should be a link between the commission's recommendations and the ability to deliver. It is no good the commission going round the country specifying action that should be taken if the Secretary of State says that the Government do not have the resources to deliver the improvements. The best model would be the prison inspectorate, which is increasingly respected as an independent voice that says what is wrong in the prison service.
We have argued the case for local and health authority mergers. The Government are still fudging the issue on the control of prices for the drugs industry. They are saying that they like the voluntary system, but if it does not work they will introduce a statutory system. The pharmaceutical industry needs to be encouraged because it is a great British industry, but the NHS has an interest in regulating the way in which it is charged for the services that it has to buy from the industry.
On the professions, the Secretary of State has clearly learned a lesson from the debates on the Bill in the other place. Initially he sought all the powers for himself, but there have now been many welcome amendments. All the professions should be regulated. It is a long time since some of them first asked for regulation. For example, psychologists want people to know who a proper psychologist is. We need a system that can bring them quickly into the regulated fold, but we should not change from a system of professional self-regulation without primary legislation. The framework must be clear so that each profession knows where it stands.
A crucial amendment was forced on the Government in the other place to bring the independent health care sector within the remit of the quality control initiatives. The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) was wrong to say that it should be under the control of the NHS. It should be under the control of the Government. We firmly believe that the private health care sector should be regulated according to the same standards as apply to the public health care sector. We shall resist any attempt by the Government to reverse that welcome change to the Bill. We shall also support the other two major amendments made against the Government, which were to ensure that a majority of a primary care group voted in favour before it became a trust and to ensure the right to refer out of area, which is another name for the existing practice of extra-contractual referrals.
There is just one further issue that the Government still resist and I have not heard an explanation from the Secretary of State of why they are being so difficult. There should be clear equal opportunities requirements throughout the NHS, not just on the basis of gender and race, but also on the basis of age. It would be entirely proper to put such a provision in the Bill and we hope that the Government will change their mind.
The Bill proposes changes to create a better quality and more accountable health service. We welcome that, but the Government could have come up with provisions to answer the big questions and meet the needs of the people. Sadly, this short Bill for England, Wales and Scotland is a Bill of missed opportunities in every case. We do not understand why we are legislating for Scotland in April and May of 1999 when from May the Scottish Parliament, which properly wants to run the health service, will take over those powers. We also do not understand why the Government are seeking to impose a system on Wales when the Welsh Assembly is to be elected next month. It, too, will be given responsibility for the health service. The Government want to give the Secretary of State more responsibility for the health service in England when there are plenty of people at local and regional level who are competent to make decisions to meet local needs. We understand that, but we strongly oppose it.
The Government could have introduced a more democratic local health service. They could have introduced a strategic democratic tier for the health service. They could have provided incentives for more people to work for the health service. Above all, they could have owned up to the fact that decisions about resources and rationing have to be made.
We were constructive in seeking to amend the Bill in the Lords, but we remain unhappy because it is weak and timid. We cannot support the Government tonight, but we shall work in Committee to improve the Bill and make it more worthy of the Government's ambitions and objectives and of what the people expect from the health service. By the time it comes back to the House, we hope that the Bill will be bolder and braver than the current very timid measure.

Mr. Paul Truswell: Since the general election, nothing has given me greater pleasure—in the Chamber, at least—than I have now in supporting the Bill. I have been able to view the national health service for some years from a variety of vantage points: as a member of a family health services authority; as a health authority member; as a chair of social services; and as a member of a community health council. In all that time, I never perceived the benefits of the elixir described by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke).
Primary care groups may have a great deal to learn, but they are infinitely preferable to their GP fundholder predecessors. Unlike GP fundholding, they are inclusive, not exclusive; integrated, not fragmented; co-operative, not competitive. They have the capacity to take communities along with them, on board rather than in tow.
The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe mentioned various senior clinicians of his acquaintance. I refer to only one such person of my acquaintance,

Dr. Kingsley Reid, an eminent GP in my constituency and chair of the Leeds local medical committee of GPs. He said that the previous Government made such a mess of the NHS that he doubts the capacity of any Government to repair it.
Senior GPs have welcomed PCGs as an opportunity to put primary care in the front line and in the NHS driving seat. They do not regard everything to do with PCGs as sweetness and light, and there are still concerns about the work load expected of PCG board members and the speed with which the groups may be forced to develop. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will take those concerns into account.
There are further concerns relating to learning the lessons of GP fundholding. PCGs should not be allowed to advance to the detriment of their neighbours. Whatever defence the Conservative party may have mounted for fundholding, it is a fact that it was promoted on the basis of fear, bribery and, in some cases, turning a blind eye to issues of probity.
Many GPs opposed fundholding but still became fundholders, not because they were hypocrites but because they knew that the Conservative party would do everything that it could to make its ideological baby walk. Someone was clearly going to get a bum deal, and GPs did not want them or their patients to be left holding the nappy.
Those GPs were proved right when the Conservative Government stuffed fundholders' surgeries, if not their mouths, with gold. Allocations of cash to fundholders were based on historic referral and prescribing patterns. It was possible to engage in a frenzy of prescribing and referring in the preparatory year before fundholding, knowing that such activity would form the baseline of the fundholding budget.
Fundholders also received generous extra funding for staff and computers. It may be said that there was a choice, but there was also a great deal of incentive, which came from a levelling down process. Those who were not fundholders' patients suffered the levelling down produced by the system introduced by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe.
Fundholders were in a privileged win-win position in respect of surpluses and deficits. They were able to keep their savings and leave to the health authority the task of bailing them out when they overspent. [Interruption.] One would not even run a whist drive in Maidstone, or wherever the right hon. Lady's constituency is, let alone a national health service, in that way. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) has already made a speech. She cannot now make another one.

Mr. Truswell: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for interrupting our conversation.
When Leeds health authority was seriously in deficit and some of its contracts for routine procedures were running out, the majority of fundholders were sitting on surpluses, many well into six figures. One such surplus was almost £300,000. By the fourth year of fundholding in Leeds, the total surplus amounted to £2.7 million, which roughly equated to the deficit faced by the


health authority, which was responsible for purchasing care for those who were not in the privileged position of being patients of fundholders.
Levelling down also took place among fundholders. Having foisted a great deal of riches on the early tranches of fundholding, the Conservative Government discovered a simple arithmetical truth: one cannot continue to give an increasing proportion of people an unfair share of the cake. The early tranches were reduced as new fundholders came in, but those who were not fundholders were still left in the sink.
The fact that fundholding quickly passed its sell-by date was illustrated by the way in which so many different systems grew up. There were total purchasing projects, locality commissioning and multi-funds. Those systems were more in keeping with PCGs than with fundholding.
Another attraction of fundholding was the fact that accountability was relaxed to the point at which it was very flaccid indeed. The definition of what constituted improvements in patient care was stretched to the limit. Several times, our auditors on the FHSA raised serious questions about clinical items such as the purchase of lavish oak furniture and extravagant computer upgrades, especially as the suppliers were linked commercially with the practices concerned. The CHC also raised questions about money being used to resurface car parks. Perhaps, in due course, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence could consider the clinical effectiveness of tarmac, oak and other such items.
We went off to the Kremlin, which is the affectionate title by which the NHS headquarters in Leeds is known, and were told, "Hands off. Go away. We're not interested. Don't you be doing anything to discourage fundholders, now or in the future." That was the Conservative party's approach.
The Conservatives display a slavish adherence to GP fundholding, but they should answer a few questions in defence of that wonderful system. Why, if it was so good, did it perversely have to rely on its shortcomings to attract recruits? Why did GPs have to be bribed with cash, staff and computers, at the expense of other patients and non-fundholders? Why was such a blind eye turned to issues of probity? [Interruption.] The answer can be given in the summing up, so please let us not hear it from the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) now.
The only tiers that should be shed in the context of GP fundholding are the two tiers of NHS care to which it gave rise. I can give no better example than the experience of my constituent Kristie Swift. She was suffering from a common ear complaint that required routine surgery. Her hearing was badly affected and her whole educational development was being undermined.

Mr. Hammond: Sounds like Jennifer's ear.

Mr. Truswell: A consultant said that he could not treat Kristie that financial year because her GP was not a fundholder, and her head teacher asked me to look into the case because she was so worried about her lack of development.
It turned out that Kristie's GP was in fact a fundholder, and she received her operation long before the end of the financial year, so within a matter of a few weeks, she had been on both levels of the two-tier system produced by

the Conservative party, and for good measure she had been the victim of the convoluted bureaucracy spawned by that dynamic duo of the internal market and GP fundholding.
I heard some mutterings about Jennifer's ear. To some extent, that may be pertinent, although this case is 100 per cent. true, not a dramatisation based on what we know in any case to have been a reality. The issue of Jennifer's ear in 1992 concerned the difference as regards access between the NHS and the private sector.
I have described the battle of Kristie's ear. We are not talking today about the division between public and private, but about an NHS that the Conservative party divided against itself. The Bill will help to close that divide and is a welcome stitch in time for our NHS.

Mr. Robert Walter: The NHS is probably the most popular institution in Britain, but judging by the Secretary of State's opening remarks he obviously does not believe that the Bill will be popular. He spent most of his time talking about other health service issues rather than the Bill. Because the NHS is popular, it generates huge concern among those who use it and those who think they would like to use it. It is also one of the few institutions over which the Government have total control.
Members on both sides of the House are committed to the national health service. Despite what the Labour party says, we are committed to making the NHS efficient and effective—but will the Bill contribute to that aim? It is suggested that the Bill will save money through the abolition of fundholding and that it will release scarce resources to be used for patient care. However, primary care groups will probably cost some £150 million a year to administer. Some estimates have put that figure as high as £300 million a year, excluding start-up costs for the new procedure. Ministers have suggested that that money will be recycled, but that is a nonsense. The administration of fundholding costs only £135 million a year, and that is the figure given by the Minister of State to the Select Committee on Health earlier this year. The Secretary of State said earlier that that £135 million has already been used, or recycled, for cancer screening.
The Bill will not abolish the so-called internal market, because there will still be a purchaser-provider balance. The relationship remains intact, although I am sure that Ministers will point to clause 23, which deals with co-operation. It is a motherhood and apple pie clause, which suggests that we will all work together in some great co-operative effort to deliver our objectives. Primary care trusts and health authorities will still buy in services from trusts and local authorities. Level 4 primary care trusts will be able to provide some services for themselves and supply services to other bodies.
The suggestion is that that will abolish the two-tier structure of the NHS. However, the Bill provides for four tiers of primary care, and will allow no choice. At least in the two-tier structure there was some choice. Fundholders and their patients will lose out. If we examine the divisions of care between those in primary care groups at level 1 and those in primary care trusts at level 4, we see a genuine two, three or four-tier effect.
The Bill will not produce a more efficient or effective NHS. In rural areas such as my constituency, the Bill will bring together GPs' practices spread over many miles,
which have little in common, other than that when added together they make a unit that suits the civil service maths for a primary care group and, eventually, a primary care trust. Is that an efficient way to run a primary care delivery system? Who will attend the meetings of the board? Will practices send their best GP, the senior partner and the man who is most effective at delivering care on the ground? Or will they send their least effective GP, the man who can be spared from the surgery for half a day to go to a meeting that is possibly some 20 or 30 miles away. When he comes back and tells the practice about the decisions, will the other GPs feel ownership of the decisions, if their least effective man has been sent along as a placeman to sit on the board? It is difficult enough for GPs to work within their own practices, let alone to work with GPs who may be 20 or 30 miles away in other practices. Committee meetings will also be a call on GPs' time, which has not been accounted for in the costs of the Bill.
Abolishing fundholding is a fundamental mistake. Fundholding has received many plaudits from virtually every source other than the Government. The British Medical Association said a couple of years ago that fundholding is
"a good model for encouraging consumer accountability into the NHS … GPs are truly willing to share the decision-making process with their patients."
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an external body, stated:
Within the range of services that they are permitted to purchase, GPs do seem to have done a better job of purchasing than district Health Authorities. Fund-holders have been more prepared to diversify providers, challenge hospital practices and to demand improvements.
The Audit Commission, a body that cannot be associated with Ministers from Governments of either party, made the most telling observation in March last year, when it said:
Most fund-holders have introduced … improvements, including more services for patients at practice premises, improved communication with hospitals, and more cost-effective drug prescribing.
It seems that the wider benefits of fundholding are clear to everyone except the Government. Fundholders have been able to secure shorter waiting times for their patients operations. GPs have managed their practice budgets and have been able to develop new specialist services for their patients. Fundholding has encouraged greater communication and provides a way to involve GPs in the wider planning and management of the NHS. Fundholders have been able to manage their premises budgets, to develop and improve their surgeries and waiting rooms for the benefit of patients. The ability to perform minor surgical procedures in GPs' practices has been developed as a result of that greater autonomy. Because the patient is closer to the centre of decision making, fundholding has encouraged greater accountability in the health service and access to the executive process for patients.
In the time available, I have dealt with the provision for primary care that the Bill contains. It contains other measures, including provision for quality, under NICE and CHIMP. The provisions on drug pricing will be onerous for the supply of drugs to patients, and the Bill also contains provisions on professional regulation.

However, it will do little to improve health care in Britain. The provision of primary care will take a step backwards as a result of the Bill. It could have been better drafted to provide efficient and effective control of the NHS and, at the end of the day, the Bill will be seen as unnecessary.

Mr. Patrick Hall: I welcome the Bill and the changes taking place in the new national health service. Given the time limit on Back-Bench speeches, I shall comment principally on primary care groups and the context in which they arise. I shall focus on the Bedford primary care group.
Primary care groups have just begun their work. They are sub-committees of local health authorities and will meet in public and conduct their business openly. That is an important fact. At their meetings, they will, de facto, afford community health councils the observer status sought by those councils. There may be some positive purpose in formally recognising the observer status that has been requested, because community health councils are drawn from local communities, local authorities and the voluntary sector, and I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider whether that requirement could be included in regulation and to comment on that when he sums up.
The Bedford primary care group covers a population of 145,000 people served by 25 GP practices and 75 general practitioners. I have recently spoken to the chairman of the new PCG about his views and those of his colleagues on the board as to the future prospects for the PCG. He is positive about two aspects. First, he saw the opportunities inherent in an approach to the development and delivery of health care commissioned by people who are in daily contact with patients. That is most important. There are seven GPs, a practice nurse and a health visitor on the Bedford PCG. Those people can see at once what is happening on the ground; they can relate the strategies and plans of health authorities and others to the reality of life in the community.
The second positive aspect is the concept and the practice—as we shall see—of a unified budget. Initially, 40 per cent. of the capitation will be devolved to the area covered by the PCG—£32 million for the Bedford PCG. The official target is that that must rise to 60 per cent. by April next year, but the Bedfordshire health authority and the five PCGs in Luton and Bedfordshire are forming a commissioning consortium, or forum, that has as one of its aims a devolved budget of 100 per cent. by next spring.
The Bedford primary care group sees the new funding arrangements as providing—in the words of the chairman of the new PCG—"an exciting opportunity" for a more cost-effective and holistic approach to expenditure. For example, the new arrangements offer the opportunity to choose to spend more on certain drugs for patients who are still at home, still in the community and at work. Under previous arrangements, that would have overspent the cash-limited drugs budget and the spending would not have taken place. Now that spending can happen and, as a result, money can be saved at the other end of the process—the hospital emergency treatment end. That could represent an overall saving of resources that could be redeployed or reinvested in developments. There would also be a reduction in stress for patients, which would be good for individuals, their families and society.
People are enthusiastic about the prospects for the groups—especially the medium and long-term prospects. We realise that when something new starts, there will be short-term problems during the bedding-down process. Fundholders and non-fundholders are now working together on the Bedford PCG board and that is another good feature of the reforms. The former fundholders have some concerns that the new arrangements might make budget decisions more difficult in the short term and that there might be some difficulties in continuing some of the innovations that they introduced in fundholding practices. I acknowledge that—as do the Government. No one is trying to hide that, but the important point is that there is now a greater vision for the greater good, and that is accepted by the Bedford PCG. The benefits should exist for the many, not only for the few—benefits for the whole country, not merely for those patients whose doctors happen to be members of a fundholding practice.
There is a will to make the new system work. It is accepted that the innovations of fundholding should apply to the whole country. I accept that there were innovations in fundholding that benefited some patients, but they should apply to everyone. It is also accepted by many people—including those to whom I have spoken in Bedford—that fundholding could not be the mechanism to deliver the expansion of improved services to all, because of the inherent contradictions in the system. The system had high transaction costs as part of the bureaucratic internal market; it was based on competition, not co-operation and, by its very nature, made planning and long-term thinking difficult. It was inherently destabilising to the national health service.
Apart from the important new duty of quality that has been mentioned by other hon. Members, the Bill also introduces a new duty of co-operation and partnership, not only within the NHS, but outside. There will be partnership with the voluntary sector, local authorities, social services departments and employers—for example, in drawing up health improvement programmes. Consistent with that duty is the need to consult the public. On that subject, I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to agree that community health councils should be consulted by primary care trusts—when that evolutionary step takes place—on significant changes in service, and that CHCs should have the right to inspect premises run by primary care trusts. In respect of the proposed changes to the legislative framework for NHS trusts, it would be reasonable for a requirement to be included that NHS trusts consult the public and CHCs on proposed changes to services or plans to dispose of or acquire sites.
What we are about now, in moving on from fundholding and in the other measures, is levelling upwards, commissioning services that people need. It is about returning to the historic founding principle of the national health service: top-quality medical care, accessible to all, based on need and never based on ability to pay. That historic principle is as important today as it was when it inspired the country 55 years ago. The Bill provides important measures and takes important steps to raise standards, to tackle health inequalities and to take the NHS forward as one of this country's greatest and finest achievements.

Mr. Stephen Dorrell: In the 10 minutes available to me, I want to concentrate my remarks on the effect of the Bill on the primary care world. I want to

follow up some of the remarks made by my right hon. and hon. Friends about fundholding and to pick up a particular question posed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe): what do the Government envisage as being the long-term role of a primary care trust? That question is unanswered in the Bill and in its supporting notes.
I begin with a little NHS history. When Enoch Powell was Health Minister in the early 1960s, he made speeches about the importance of making the hospital sector of the health service more accountable to general practice and to people who are in day-to-day contact with patients. That theme was followed up in speeches made by Conservative and Labour Health Ministers through the 1960s, 70s and 80s. If there had been word processors in those days, that text would have been on the word processor. In 1990, those who examined the British national health service started to notice that 30 years of rhetoric about the need to make the hospital service more accountable to general practice was suddenly being converted into action.
The famous aphorism that Christmas cards flowed from general practitioners to hospital consultants was reversed in 1990 when consultants suddenly found a need to send Christmas cards to GPs. The House must ask itself whether it was just a massive historical coincidence that the extra accountability of the hospital service to GPs happened when my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) introduced GP fundholding and the reforms of 1990. Or was there some cause and effect? I believe that there was: my right hon. and learned Friend's reforms, in which I had the honour to play a minor role, strengthened the effective voice of general practice within the NHS, achieving what 30 years of rhetoric had failed to bring about by making the hospital service more accountable to general practitioners, and through them to patients.
The Government continue to make the same speeches about the importance of the secondary care sector being responsive to the wishes of the primary care sector. Ministers apparently believe that the change in the centre of influence of the health service that happened in the early 1990s can be sustained by primary care groups. I wish that I agreed, but I do not.
The key difference between the fundholding regime introduced by my right hon. and learned Friend as an option for all GPs and the primary care groups is that the 1990 regime gave each practice the right to decide where the funds available to support patient care should go. Under the PCG system, groups will be so large that the individual GP will lose the effective right to make those decisions on behalf of patients.
I do not apologise for the fact that when I was Secretary of State I facilitated the coming together in larger commissioning organisations of GPs who wished to do so. The key difference between the range of options mentioned by the hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell) and the primary care groups is that a fundholding practice that went into a multi-fund or took part in a larger purchasing co-operative participated voluntarily. If the practice was not satisfied with the decisions taken in the larger co-operative, it could go away and do its own thing better. Under the Government's scheme, participation in PCGs is compulsory.
I have no quarrel with the Government's desire to open the option of purchasing to a wider range of patients. If GPs feel that that is the best way to deliver care to
patients, I have no problem with it. However, the key failing of the PCG idea is that participation is compulsory. The authority and power that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe gave to individual practices is being taken away and given to a new tier of bureaucracy. If Ministers believe that the Government will go down in history for cutting NHS administrative costs by creating a new tier of bureaucracy in the administration of PCGs, they have a greater faith than I do in the capacity of bureaucrats to cut bureaucratic costs.
My first point, then, is that the PCG weakens the capacity of individual general practitioners to make the structure of the health service account to the needs and wishes of patients. The Bill should be opposed for that reason.
My second theme follows the question put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald. What will be the long-term purpose of the primary care trust, and what, in the Government's vision of the world, is the future of general practice delivered by independent contractors?
The Bill makes it clear that as well as having the authority to regulate the general medical services sector, primary care trusts will have the power to deliver general medical services currently delivered by GPs. Presumably, PCTs are able to deliver those services only by employing GPs. In which circumstances do the Government expect that model to be followed? That is a critical question, and I hope that the Minister will respond to it.
General medical services are one of the great unchallenged success stories of the NHS since its foundation, and that success lies at the heart of primary care. The health service was established on two key principles. First, a GP is a self-employed professional; secondly, he delivers his service as an independent contractor against a national contract, traditionally known as the red book. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe rewrote many aspects of the red book when he was Secretary of State, but he did not change that basic principle.
One important change was made to that principle under the previous Government in the National Health Service (Primary Care) Act 1997, for which I was responsible. It introduced for the first time the principle of local contracting, as opposed to the national contract. It also introduced the principle that there could be employed GPs as well as self-employed contractors. Both innovations were made for good reasons, but they were introduced on the basis that participation must be voluntary. Assurances had to be given to the vast majority of GPs that the option of delivering general medical services on the traditional basis would remain open.
When the Government introduce primary care trusts, giving PCTs the power to employ people to deliver general medical services, they must be crystal clear about when the PCT will have the right to employ a GP and about the circumstances in which a PCT will be empowered to deliver services in competition with independent professionals that the PCTs are obliged to regulate—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Ivan Lewis: I am delighted to support a Bill that reinforces much work already begun to modernise the national health service. The key themes of quality, partnership and accountability define the principles that should underpin an NHS truly fit for the 21st century. The Government have demonstrated their commitment to the NHS by providing —
21 billion over the next three years.
The Bill proves, however, the Government's belief that that commitment is not only about extra resources. In return for our investment, we must make sure that patients in every community up and down the country experience significant improvement in the quality of health care. The Bill also draws a line beneath Tory health policy, which did so much to disfigure the NHS. Competition, inequality of access to services and underfunding combined to undermine public confidence in the NHS, though never public support for it.
Every opportunity should be taken to give people a history lesson about what the previous Government attempted to do with the NHS and to expose the Conservative party's plans for and philosophical beliefs about the future of the NHS. It is interesting that the health service is one of the few areas in which the Conservative party has begun to articulate an alternative policy agenda.
In a recent speech to the Social Market Foundation, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) called for a significant increase in the number of people being encouraged—
I assume by the state—to take out private health insurance, and suggested that that policy should be supported by the Government through tax relief. Whenever we make that accusation and claim that that is what the Opposition are saying, they shake their head and deny that they believe that one way to improve quality in the health service is to increase the number of patients using the private sector, so 1 shall quote briefly from a speech that the hon. Gentleman made. He said:
Each and every one of our competitor countries has a larger personal healthcare sector. What becomes clear from looking at other countries is that we are losing out by not encouraging the expansion of personal healthcare. If we are to catch up with others, and deliver the standard of healthcare this country deserves, we need to build a larger public-personal mix. We need to add a thriving personal sector to the public sector NHS we already have.
It is perfectly clear from what the hon. Gentleman says that he believes, as a fundamental principle and philosophy, that the way to improve the NHS is to encourage large numbers of people to leave the NHS and use private health care.
On 28 January, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) told the parliamentary Press Gallery lunch:
I think if somebody wants to pay to see their GP, they should be encouraged to do so … The problem with the NHS is that we do not charge for much of what we do.
However one dresses up or explains those statements, it is clear that the Conservative party is advocating privatisation by stealth. It is advocating what it did when it was in power—it effectively privatised the long-term care of the elderly and community care. The Conservatives were not brave enough to tell the people of


this country that they wanted to privatise the health service because they understood the political consequences of that. We will take every opportunity—

Mr. Hammond: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Lewis: No, I shall not give way. I have only 10 minutes.
We will take every opportunity to tell the people of this country what the Conservatives' agenda would be if they were ever to be given control of the health service again.

Mr. Duncan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Lewis: No, I am sorry.
The Conservatives spoke about the dispossessed. Whether they did so in the context of health care or in the context of social deprivation, how dare they claim to be the friends of the dispossessed. For 18 years, they created more dispossessed than any Government in the history of this country. They also created a greater gap between rich and the poor than we had ever seen.
I deal now with some specific provisions in the Bill. Primary care trusts will be the natural evolution of the primary care groups, up and running since 1 April. Collaboration and teamwork will replace divisiveness and inequality of access to treatment. The service will undoubtedly benefit from GPs working more closely with other health and social care professionals. We have heard about the fear that GPs who are not very good will hold back those who are innovative and imaginative and who want to make flexible use of resources, but surely bringing GPs together in PCGs and PCTs will mean that peer group pressure will be applied to those who are not doing the job in the way we want and in a way that will enhance the quality of care available to patients. There was much cynicism and scepticism about PCGs before 1 April, but we can all evidence the commitment and work that health care professionals have put in to making them work.
There is also a new emphasis on quality, as exemplified by the establishment of the Commission for Health Improvement and the new statutory duty for quality. These measures will ensure that mechanisms are in place to monitor and evaluate quality at a local level, and to allow for speedy intervention when it is clear that things are going wrong. For too long there has been a disparity of quality depending on where one lives, or perhaps because quality was put to the bottom of the agenda by hard-pressed managers who were weighed down by the bureaucracy of the internal market. The Government are committed to ensuring that quality is the central driving force behind the modernisation and development of the NHS. That common sense dictates that the concept of partnership is the key to securing lasting health improvement and the most effective use of finite resources. At last there is an explicit duty of co-operation between NHS bodies, and between NHS and other local agencies.
When I was first elected to the House, one of the things that horrified me was the fact that health authorities, health trusts and local authorities slated each other in the local media for the difficulties experienced by patients. There was a culture not of collaboration, but of passing the buck and blaming other agencies. There is absolutely

no doubt that the new approach to partnership and collaboration is making a real difference in the relationship between the agencies.
We should remember, however, that organisations cannot really have relationships—it is the professionals and other people who work in them who need to develop mutual respect and confidence. The Government are creating a variety of vehicles to enable people from different disciplines to have regular contact and dialogue, and to work collaboratively to ensure that patients get the best possible deal. For example, local health improvement programmes will bring together not only the relevant statutory agencies, but the voluntary sector and carers and users in genuine partnership.
Under previous partnerships, statutory agencies issued draft proposals, and others were asked to comment on them at a final stage. This is about genuine partnership, whereby from the beginning, people from all sectors, including users and carers, identify local priorities and together set about meeting them.
We should also welcome the new pooled budget arrangements between health and social services, and the flexibility that will be given to health authorities to transfer money to social services departments where that is deemed appropriate. Some of us would like a much closer organisational integration between health and social care, but if these developments improve the relationship between health and social care and ensure that users get a seamless service, they will be an important step forward.
In conclusion, the Bill provides further evidence of the Government's commitment to constant improvement of the NHS in response to ever-changing needs and demands. The British people believe in and are proud of their NHS. The Bill will help us to deliver the quality of service that they deserve.

Mr. John Horam: It was remarkable that the Secretary of State spent so little time on the Bill. He capped it all by refusing to accept any interventions in the little time that he spent outlining the virtues of the Bill. What we got instead was the umpteenth edition of the Dobson rant. I rather wished that we were in the Senate in America, so that the relevant bit could have been read into the record. It would then have appeared in Hansard, and we could have got on with discussing the real issues rather than listening to the same thing yet again. What we had today does not contribute to the serious health debate that we ought to be having, and which patients and our constituents would want us to have.
As has been said, primary care groups are central to the Bill. As has been agreed, about 60 per cent. of GPs had become fundholders by the end of the last Parliament. Clearly, there are different views, and I dare say that a certain subjectivity entered the debate on the pros and cons of the various alternatives. However, let us consider the objective views of those outside the House, such as the Audit Commission, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and most doctors. Also, Professor Brian Abel-Smith, a noted adviser to Labour, told the Government, "Whatever you do, don't destroy fundholding—it has been a success." That is the view of independent people.
As the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Hall) said, the opportunity was there to accept what was good in fundholding, build on it and deal with the 40 per cent.
or so of GPs who had not yet got into the fundholding system. But no, in the spirit of levelling down, the Government had to destroy everything, the good as well as the unproven, and possibly even the bad, and bring in the new system of PCGs.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), the former Secretary of State for Health, said, the crucial difference is that whereas it was possible for decisions to be taken by one doctor, or at most by two or three in a group, and for doctors to own their decisions and be responsible for them, decisions are now being made by perhaps 50 or 100 doctors in one commissioning group.
I am an economist, and economists are famous for not agreeing, or for finding it very difficult to agree, with each other. I am sure that doctors are much more able, perhaps 100 or 200 per cent. more able, to agree with each other than are economists, but the idea of getting 50 or 100 doctors to agree with each other, with nurses, laymen, administrators, carers and all the others who are rightly in these groups, and with committees and sub-committees of committees is nonsensical. Therefore, although I accept the point made by Labour Members that professional doctors and nurses will try to make the system work—because they want to do so if at all possible and because they have no alternative—no one can get round the fact that it is cumbersome, elaborate and bureaucratic. In addition, it is expensive.
A further point, which was made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), is that the system is compulsory. It is compulsory not only in the sense that the Secretary of State says, "You, as a GP, have to join the system", but in the sense that GPs must do so on his terms.
It so happens that my health authority, Bromley, was not particularly strong on fundholding. Quite a small proportion of doctors were members of fundholding practices. As a result, the health authority set up a commissioning system. A small group of GPs and nurses, representing all the GP practices in the health authority area, was formed. The system was developed, and was being put through under the previous Government. Indeed, it was so successful that officials from Whitehall went to study exactly what was happening in Bromley. It was, to some extent, a model of the commissioning proposed for primary care groups.
In conducting such pioneering work, Bromley was well ahead of other health authorities in dealing with questions concerning GP fundholding and practice groups. However, the Government were not content to accept the model, saying that it did not fit into the Whitehall man's view of things. Bromley was told: "You cannot go ahead with that. One group for an entire health authority is not right; you must have three or four"—no evidence was given of why there should be three or four—"groups, scrap all your work and start again."
As a result, Bromley is the last in the health authority queue in the country. Indeed, it is so late in its preparation that it is having to postpone the introduction of primary care groups until 1 July, whereas most are being introduced on 1 April. All the work that was done has had to be done all over again because Bromley's version of it—even though it formed a model used by the

Government—was not satisfactory. That shows the extent to which the Government are prepared to accept only the exact model of what they are looking for. That is dictatorial and profoundly unsatisfactory in encouraging local initiative.
While on the question of Whitehall man, the Secretary of State claimed in his speech that, as a result of the proposed measures, financial planning would be better accomplished. All I can say is that financial planning has not been well served in Bromley by the methods that he has so far introduced. For example, money for winter pressures was allocated in the middle of December. Despite Ministers being used to flying by Concorde and going scuba diving during debates on the Budget, they must surely have some grasp of reality. Anybody knows that to allocate money for winter pressures in the middle of December is ridiculous.
As a result, there were huge trolley waits in Bromley hospitals in January. Elderly women—one was more than 80 years old—were on trolleys for many hours as a direct consequence of the trust's inability to plan because the Government failed to take decisions in time and wrapped everything up in red tape.
The perception of the hospital system among ordinary people has been severely damaged by the Government's lack of action and the expectations that they raised. Not only have there been trolley waits on such a scale as never before in Bromley, but waiting lists have not been reduced as the Government promised. Admittedly, Bromley is a particularly good performer. However, the number of people on the waiting list has fallen by only 320 to 6,430—a reduction of a few per cent. Not only that, the waiting list for the waiting list, which is not counted, has grown longer. Not only that, more operations are being cancelled than ever before. That is not recorded either. The possibility of admission to a bed through accident and emergency is now the worst on record.
The entire circumstances regarding waiting times—not merely waiting lists—are considerably worse in Bromley than in any previous year of which I know. That is the consequence of the Government's total failure to perceive the real nature of the problem.
As we are all aware—certainly on the Opposition Benches—it was evident to Conservative Members and to many eminent professionals in the health service that the Labour Opposition had developed no serious strategy for the NHS. The Labour party has demonstrated no serious strategy since it came to power—nothing which can be defined as a serious attempt to deal with the admitted problems of the health service. There is certainly nothing in the Bill to address them on the scale necessary.
Proposing evolutionary, practical, common-sense measures, which have always served the NHS well, will therefore fall to a future Conservative Government, as it always has. As we know, Conservative Governments have handled, looked after and protected the NHS for two thirds of its time. As a consequence, we have today's excellent health service—even though, admittedly, it cannot solve all its difficulties.
When my right hon. and hon. Friends resume power, they will come forward with a set of proposals which, distinct from the concept that the man in Whitehall knows best and the Government's centralised, bureaucratic and red tape-riddled proposals, will be based on a decentralised approach, encouraging and helping local


initiatives, trusting doctors, nurses and local managers and creating an atmosphere of co-operation with the private sector, instead of the hate for it that is so often displayed by Labour Members, and was again today. I hope that, when my right hon. and hon. Friends flesh out that package of measures appropriately, they will say, "Vote Conservative—to save our NHS".

Mr. John Austin: Although I have no pecuniary or registrable interest to declare, I am a member of the Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union, which incorporates community practitioners and the Health Visitors Association, and represents doctors and a wide variety of other professions in the health service.
I welcome this Bill and its attempts to overcome the obstacles to co-operative working which have been created by the internal market. I do not deny that there were some benefits of past reforms, and it is right that, in their new proposals, the Government have discarded the things that failed and have built on those that worked. In particular, I welcome the Government's commitment to and recognition of the important role of primary care.
The Bill builds on the themes set out in the White Papers: the need to improve the quality of service in the NHS, the need for the NHS to work together and in partnership with local government and the voluntary sector, and devolution of responsibility to a local level in shaping services that are relevant to local needs, enabling local decision making to get the best out of NHS resources, and giving responsibility locally for the promotion of the health of communities.
There has been widespread support throughout the NHS for the creation of primary care groups, which will develop the potential of primary care commissioning without the disadvantages of individual fundholding, which we know has been bureaucratic, divisive and costly. I welcome the abolition of the so-called internal market—a pernicious system which, as the Secretary of State said, set hospital against hospital, and doctor and nurse against doctor and nurse, discouraged the sharing of information and created a two-tier system, providing better services for a few patients at the expense of others.
The market orientation of recent years has done little, if anything, to improve the efficiency of the service or widen the choice available to the majority of patients. The concept of competition has worked against co-operation between different parts of the service. That is why I warmly welcome the Government's approach of replacing competition with co-operation and introducing a new duty of partnership.
I welcome the introduction of health improvement plans, which will provide the framework for commissioning decisions and enable improvements in health to be achieved. That is a clear shift in focus for the NHS toward outputs rather than inputs. Increasingly, we shall be looking at outcomes and what ought to be achieved. But for those health improvement programmes to work, there needs to be a strong community and voluntary sector and carer involvement in consultation on those plans. I hope that the Minister of State will require those plans to be published and full consultation to take place. I hope that in his summing up, he will say how those consultation mechanisms through health

improvement boards will work. My concern is that, without that clear guidance from the Department, it may be premature to seek the abolition of the joint consultative committees.
I warmly welcome the Government's promotion of the public health agenda. Health and health care are vitally influenced by poverty, bad housing, poor diet, low expectations, lack of educational opportunity and social exclusion. The Government are tackling all those issues. Many years ago the Black report and more recently the Acheson report have drawn attention to the health inequities across the country due to environmental and economic factors. That is why it is of the utmost importance that we promote co-operative working between health and local authorities, not just between health authorities and social services departments, but with the whole range of local government services—with housing, education, leisure and recreation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis) said, the Bill provides an opportunity to break down many of the barriers that exist to co-operative working in those spheres.
I want to mention the introduction of primary care groups and the concept of a primary care-led NHS. I have some questions to ask the Minister of State. I emphasise that, in my view, it should be a primary care-led NHS and not necessarily a GP-led NHS.
I want to focus on the contribution of nursing to the modern NHS. I believe that the potential that nursing can offer must be maximised. I welcome the introduction by the previous Government, and the expansion by the present Government, of nurse prescribing. Nurse practitioners are already running outreach health clinics, minor injuries services, family planning and sexual health clinics. Nurses are often the prime professionals involved in health education and health promotion programmes such as those dealing with alcohol abuse, with breast care, with osteoporosis and with testicular cancer. Patients with chronic diseases have benefited from the development of nurse-led care, and it is nurses who act as a resource for many non-health professionals in health education and health promotion programmes.
In my constituency at the Bevan centre, a short-term intermediate care centre providing intensive rehabilitative care and support to patients who would otherwise be blocking far more expensive beds in an acute hospital, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and other health care workers are providing more relevant quality care and more intensive support than patients could expect to receive in a district general hospital, and at far less cost to the NHS.
The maximum encouragement must be given to innovative developments in nurse and therapist-led care. In that respect, I find it regrettable that only two primary care groups have a nurse as their chair. The Government's arrangements for primary care groups require each PCG to have one or two nurses on its board. Although I acknowledge that that is recognition of the vital contribution that nurses can make to commissioning local health services and of the specific expertise that nurses can bring, I question the necessity to provide for an in-built majority of GPs on primary care groups—and why was the contribution of nurses limited to two?
It is envisaged that primary care groups will develop into primary care trusts. I believe that there is much that we should learn from the lessons of the establishment of
the PCGs. In some parts of the country, there were failings in the consultation process by which the primary care groups were established, in that working community nurses and professions allied to medicine were excluded from the consultation or from significant influence. In many areas, the trade unions and professional organisations at local level were not even nominally involved in the consultation. I hope that that will be remedied as the PCGs move to primary care trust status.
The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) has said that, in some areas, GPs are reluctant to spend time on PCG boards. I can assure the Minister of State that there is no shortage of nurses who are willing to serve and that members of professions allied to medicine would welcome the opportunity to sit on such boards, but have no direct entitlement to do so.
In addition to nurses, who I believe are very important, why should we not include community pharmacists, opticians and physiotherapists, along with other professionals who need to be involved in building the best possible primary care? The voluntary sector, service users and carers all also need to be very much involved in the process.
I understand that the Minister of State, in his letter of 19 February, requires the executive of the level 3 primary care trust boards to have up to seven GPs, two nurses and a professional with public health promotion expertise. I question whether it is right to guarantee a GP majority in that structure—why not have parity between GPs and nurses and other professions allied to medicine?
I have no objection to a majority of GPs if they are the best and most appropriate persons for the job. My concern is that the decision to enshrine a majority for GPs has been taken without justification, and without consideration of a fair selection process to ensure that the best possible persons get the jobs.
I also seek Ministers' assurance regarding the composition of the trust executive board at level 4 primary care trust level—an assurance that membership will be chosen on the basis of clear job descriptions, founded on a clearly defined function of the trust, with the best people getting the job, and not with a reserve majority for any profession.
I also want to mention equity of access. In the debate in another place, reference was made to discrimination on the grounds of age, race or gender. I hope that, in light of the Macpherson report, the Minister will give consideration to putting an equal opportunity commitment on the face of the Bill. I am aware that NICE and the national service framework provide a move forward to equity of access, but I believe that a stress on equality of opportunity is important.
I also want to refer briefly to consultation on changes in service delivery. There is a responsibility on health authorities to consult with community health councils. There is no such responsibility on NHS trusts, and there is none in the Bill, which refers to a responsibility on the primary care trusts to consult community health councils.
Often, CHCs are involved in consultation on health authority decisions when the decisions are already cut and dried. I hope that the Minister of State will consider amending the 1996 health council regulations to ensure

full consultation with community health councils. I recognise the importance of the Commission for Health Improvement, but CHCs are also important, and I wonder whether my hon. Friend might consider giving the same right of access and information to community health councils as is given to the—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Rev. Martin Smyth: I appreciate the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Mr. Austin). He expressed concerns about equality of access to primary care groups. I suspect that one reason why the doctors seem to have had more access than others is that they have the muscle. The harsh reality is that, although we have been told today that the British Medical Association supports the moves, there are deep concerns among some doctors, expressed by the BMA, on the matter. Those doctors are concerned that, having moved to start up the primary care groups, working hard with the support and encouragement of the BMA, they may be forced to move too quickly into the primary care trusts, which will take away some of the local output that they prize.
The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) was surprised that the Bill would legislate for Scotland and for Wales although, in a matter of weeks, Scotland and Wales will be responsible for their own health care—and yet Northern Ireland has been excluded, except in a few particulars. I often wonder whether that was because the draftsmen did not have time to adjust the legislation to suit Northern Ireland, where there is a closer intertwining between health and social services. Did they really imagine that the Northern Ireland Assembly would be running ahead of both Scotland and Wales, when full devolution is not scheduled to occur until next year at the earliest? I regret that, at times, we have had to legislate for Northern Ireland by Order in Council without proper debate in the House, and that things have slipped through that have not been in the best interests of good law or the best service of the people.
Some of the changes are helpful, but I trust that the Government will not follow the procedures that the previous Administration adopted when reforming management. Redundancy payments were made to those who were losing their jobs, who moved into the next district council and obtained similar jobs, having received handouts. About £19 million has already been listed for redundancies but GP fundholders are concerned that there may not be adequate funds for that purpose.
It has been suggested during the debate that the Bill will lead to a reduction in bureaucracy. When we reduce bureaucracy the millennium will be upon us, and I am not thinking of the year 2000. Following the previous round of changes within the NHS, staff moved into different positions. In Northern Ireland we set up boards which were transformed largely into trusts, and many of those who were involved in the change moved into the trusts. I believe that something similar will happen following the Bill's enactment. When we are crying out for money for front-line services, it is not right that we should be paying those who have already been given redundancy money to work in another area of the health service. We should be more careful about how we transfer people from one post to another.
I was surprised to hear the Secretary of State proudly saying that the pharmaceutical industry was supportive of the Bill. I am sure that most of us have received the briefing from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. It is true that it has welcomed some of the improvements to the Bill that were made in the other place, but it still shows tremendous concern about what might happen to one of the few surviving prosperous British industries. I know that we are living in the age of information technology and that that area of knowledge will create many jobs. However, I hope that the Government will not repeat the follies of previous Administrations who reduced the influence of some vital British industries to the detriment of our nation and the betterment of development elsewhere.
I share the Secretary of State's concern about those in the pharmaceutical industry who may not be playing fair. On the other hand, we must be careful that we do not destroy one of the most successful industries in the United Kingdom. I hope that the Government will abide by their own regulations. As I understand it from a briefing and from my knowledge of the situation, the Government were obliged by their understanding of the regulations carefully to specify best regulatory practice. They set forth their principles in "The Better Regulation Guide and Regulatory Impact Assessment".
In his foreword, the Prime Minister wrote that
"no regulatory proposal which has an impact on businesses, charities and voluntary bodies should be considered by the Government without a thorough assessment of the risks, costs and benefits, a clear analysis of who will be affected and an explanation of why non-regulatory action would be insufficient. This requirement applies whenever Ministers or their officials are seeking to clear a new proposal for primary or secondary legislation or a negotiating line that will result in such legislation."
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said clearly that such an exercise has not been conducted in regard to the Bill. If the Government are expecting others to abide by the law, they should set the example. If it is true that that has not been done, I trust that matters will be taken forward so that those who examine the Bill in Committee can proceed with greater precision.
I left the Chamber for a short time but it is my understanding that the matter to which I am about to refer has not yet been taken up, and that is the concern of Mencap and the correct desire of the Government to integrate services so as to bring professionals together in an efficient way. Mencap feels that there has been insufficient concern to ensure that services for people with learning disabilities are fully integrated with other community services rather than being treated separately with mental health provision. I ask the Minister to clarify the Government's proposals. Mencap would call on the Government to prioritise preventive health care for people with learning disabilities and to incorporate funding into health improvement programme budgets to provide for proper consultation.
We are dealing with the general principles of the Bill, and one of them is co-operation between health professionals. If we are developing care in the community, an important role rests with occupational therapists. For whatever reason, we seem not to have enough of them. If there are waiting lists for hospital appointments as a result of doctors' assessments, occupational therapists must make assessments of what is needed in individual homes and what is needed for

individuals personally as aids to enable them to remain in the community. At present, a couple of months pass before the occupational therapist comes along. Thereafter, months pass before the requisite body, be it a housing organisation or whatever, gets on with the job of providing what is needed. I trust that those issues will be considered fully in Committee.

Dr. Tony Wright: I have no registerable interest, although I did spend most of this morning in a hospital out-patient department thinking about the Bill. Indeed, I did so yesterday morning as well. Each day brings a new department. As I watched hard-pressed doctors, nurses and administrators, and anxious patients bearing up with quiet fortitude, I asked myself whether the Bill would connect with the situation and experiences that I was observing. Those who are involved would have in their mind, if they were thinking about matters in this way, whether the Bill would make things better. That is all that people want to know. Will their health service become better because of legislation that the House might pass?
I suggest that in two respects the Bill will make things better while a third area might prove to be more troublesome. I believe that our proposals for primary care groups and primary care trusts will make things better. I listened with interest to the argument between those who are passionate defenders of fundholding and those on the Government Benches who want to see the end of it. I speak as someone who was interested in the innovations that fundholding brought, but wanted to see if we could preserve those innovations while removing the inequities attached to them. I saw patients in my constituency benefiting from the innovations that fundholding brought, including the extra clout that it gave to general practitioners within the health care system. I saw also patients not benefiting from fundholding and, indeed, suffering because other people were benefiting from it.
The very proper question is, "Can we retain the virtues of fundholding while remedying its defects?" I think that I am the first hon. Member to use the language of the third way tonight: this is a third way Bill which says that we can try to make universal the extra clout that fundholding brought for some by working, not individually and competitively, but collectively in each locality so that all general practitioners are able to work together to empower themselves. They, in turn, will empower their patients.
The Bill is innovative and does not simply say, "Let's rid ourselves absolutely of all that fundholding involved and revert to a top-down, bureaucratic planning system." It says, "Let's see if we can't devise a more flexible, locally based but collaborative arrangement that would retain the virtues, but remove the iniquities and disadvantages." I think that that is what we are doing.
I am interested that the Opposition prefer other strategies—on the whole, exit strategies. If the Government are, to use the jargon, introducing a voice strategy, then exit strategies such as fundholding and disconnecting oneself from collective provision or assisted places in education are perfectly legitimate ways of thinking about how to manage problems inside public services. They are not, however, systems to which most people in this country feel attached and they do not
preserve equity. We want to preserve equity and innovation, which is what the Bill will do and I welcome that without reservation.
The second issue, about which I feel similarly, is the quality agenda. There is not time to say a great deal—other hon. Members have spoken about it—but the neglect of that agenda inside the health service over 50 long years has been extraordinary and, in many respects, criminal. We have talked only about how much money we put into the service, and how we organise and structure it, not about how effective it is clinically.
It has taken the appalling Bristol case to make us see the cost of that neglect. People say, "How could that kind of system continue for so long without anyone knowing about it or, if they knew, without doing anything about it?" It happened because we did not put in place the mechanisms of clinical monitoring and clinical accountability to which the health service should have been subject a long time ago. I pay tribute to all the doctors who work inside the service, but there is no question that the lack of audit and performance monitoring, although widespread in the service, has been particularly acute in the primary care sector.
There has been no clinical monitoring of GPs: the family health services authorities simply paid cheques to doctors and there is huge variation in the clinical performance of GPs. I hope that the primary care groups and primary care trusts will lever up standards and quality right through primary care—not only for those who were able to enjoy the advantages of the fundholding system—and the rest of the system. I would welcome that without reservation, too.
I hope that the Government will take steps to ensure that the measures that the General Medical Council is taking—after some discussion and, in some quarters, resistance—to make sure that there is effective clinical appraisal and reappraisal of all doctors are implemented.
In those two big, critical areas, I support what the Government are doing. The third issue is obvious, but indispensable—money. I represent South Staffordshire health authority, which is in financial crisis. This year, it is running a £7.5 million deficit. We shall talk to the Minister about that and we hope that we will receive assistance, but I do not want to press that point now. My point is that people in this country overwhelmingly want the health service to improve, but we are subject to a permanent revenue constraint. The Opposition say that there will always be such a constraint and that we have to resolve the problem by exploring the private sector, but that is not the position of Labour Members. Nor is it the position of the Government.
Nevertheless, we have a conundrum: most people in this country do not want the health service to stand still financially; they want it to improve and they want more money—a lot more money—to be spent on it year on year in real terms. They know that it is underfunded in relative terms. The time has come to find some kind of dedicated, hypothecated new income stream that can give the NHS a secure funding base so that it does not live from financial statement to financial statement—even from three-yearly financial statement to three-yearly financial statement. That is the real challenge behind the Bill.
I believe that in May 1997 the NHS came home—in a real sense, not only in a rhetorical sense. It came home to the people who set it up and it has come home to the people who depend upon it and work in it. The Opposition say, "That home will never be adequate. We have to build new little homes in the garden and make people live in them." However, those of us who want the health service to inhabit that home must ensure that it is secure and that it is not only patched up to keep the water out, but improved in real terms year on year.

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: It is interesting to speak after the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), because his concluding comments reflect a state of frank despair in the area that I represent: it has had one of the lowest funding increases in the country, although it has a low mortality rate but quite high morbidity and very high costs of living. People find that the continual rhetoric of the Government—the spin, the message that money is no problem and the endless new packages and new initiatives—makes their lives more and more difficult.
Before this Second Reading, I decided to revisit my health authority trusts and those taking forward the primary care group. I was struck, with great surprise, by the despair, frustration and, in some cases, fear that they feel. They have been made to feel that it is unacceptable to complain and put their head above the parapet. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) mentioned the hospital in Salisbury, I noticed that officials instantly left the Box. I hope—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Lady should know better. She should not refer anyone outside the Chamber.

Mrs. Bottomley: I stand corrected, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I hope that the individuals concerned at Salisbury are well. I think that that is an appropriate comment. Southampton was also mentioned, and the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Southampton, lichen (Mr. Denham), has been on the Front Bench for some of the debate.
The hon. Member for Cannock Chase also talked about the tension between innovation and equity. New Labour is almost Soviet in its use of language; it uses words and phrases as though using them makes them true, but there is real tension between innovation and equity. Can the Minister say what is the scope for primary care groups or primary care trusts to take a different view? It is impossible to prohibit post code prescribing and encourage diversity and innovation. Many believe that a problem of the old NHS was that it was risk averse; that it was innovation averse. Growing numbers of people believe that the Stalinist command and control approach, led by Ministers now, makes trust and health authority chief executives and primary care groups think that they will be dumped on, that they will be named and shamed, if they take any risk or innovate.
But over the years, breakthroughs in the NHS have nearly always been achieved by an innovator, such as those at Addenbrooke's and the Southampton teaching hospitals. The first hip operations were not available to


all in the NHS; that depended on whether one lived near a teaching hospital. It was always the case that a GP who knew the system and had the contacts in the hospital could obtain treatment for his patients. I do not argue that that is a virtue, but to imply that there was a romantic past with a perfect system of equality is simply not the case. Innovation was the result of developments being taken forward and others wanting to follow.
Fundholding is now dead. The Government have brought an end to GP fundholding. But, for the life of me, I cannot understand how, if a scheme is voluntary, with funding on the basis of comparable funding, there is inequity. If Labour Members had criticisms of the mechanism of the funding, changes could easily be made, but they have substituted a desperately frustrating, bureaucratic collective.
A GP's job is incredibly demanding. I do not blame the hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) for abandoning general practice and coming into the House of Commons. To work for 30 years as a GP is extremely demanding. Fundholding gave people a sense of empowerment; of being able to build the plan. It gave them leverage. The GPs whom I most enjoyed seeing were those who said that they would not be a fundholder but would do better. It gave them that empowerment. The worry about primary care groups is that they are frustrating and bureaucratic and move at the pace of the slowest. Every GP to whom I have spoken has repeated that message, even though many were not of my political persuasion. Therefore, I am extremely worried that innovation will be stultified and smothered. I am deeply worried about whether the experience for GPs will be more and more frustrating.
What are the financial and performance criteria for the primary care trusts? I would be reluctant to think that primary care trusts were driven through as a macho symbol for Ministers and I hope that Ministers will be able to be more explicit. The development of a primary care-led NHS is part of the evolutionary approach that the Bill represents. There has not been a great revolution. There has been massive rebadging, relabelling, and amnesia about the past. We have learned to be used to that with the new Labour regime. But the primary care-led NHS was cherished by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and many of the rest of us.
A possible way of helping those in my constituency through the gloom in which they currently exist because of the constrained funding for health and social services and the impossibility of taking forward decisions that will cause any amount of noise—keep the system quiet is the message that comes from those who work closely with Ministers—relates to the great hope that Farnham will have a community hospital for the 21st century. It has taken a long time to achieve that. But suddenly the accounting rules for surplus land and buildings under the PFI mean that its costings have been set right back. That was a sudden announcement with no warning and I ask the Minister to take it upon himself to assist the Surrey Hampshire Borders NHS trust to overcome that obstacle. It, to its great credit, has recognised that, rather than pursue a hospital with maternity and surgery facilities, and all the glamorous acute services, the community needs on-going day-to-day care for the elderly and the non-acute patients. It has lowered its expectations, but, after reaching agreement with the GPs, managers and local people, it desperately needs approval and endorsement. It will only have that with ministerial support.
I endorse the quality agenda. To return to the comments of the hon. Member for Cannock Chase, it is largely built on the growing recognition of medical practitioners that they cannot be entirely self-regulating. There are responsibilities of clinical governance. That has been a difficult transition. Audit within hospitals is now widespread and accepted and part of the training of junior doctors. The resistance in the early years was extraordinary. It is essential that the duty of quality is extended to the independent sector as much as to the NHS, not least because many publicly funded patients are cared for within the independent sector.
Similarly, the Commission for Health Improvement, which, again, is essentially an evolutionary and sensible development, needs further clarification. It is unrealistic to pay for CHIMP by taking the levy from the hospital that it is inspecting. It must be centrally funded. It must be like the Office for Standards in Education; otherwise, a hospital will have to pay the penalty for its problems and for the inspection.
I would also ask that the health improvement programmes are subject to a duty of consultation in which the voluntary groups must be involved. I speak as a patron of the Carers National Association, but there are many others who wish to see the consultation basis on the same level as that for the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I call Dr. Desmond Turner.

Dr. Desmond Turner: It is nice to follow one of the previous Secretaries of State for Health. It was interesting to listen to them tonight. If one did not know better and simply took what they said at face value, one would wonder why we were having this debate and why there were any problems at all, because we should have a wonderful NHS. But the truth is that we do not. We have a health service which has been labouring under great difficulties—difficulties imposed by limitations of resources and by organisation regimes which have been focused not on patients or medicine but on finance and management. That has not produced the goods.
The opposition that we have heard today has been a mixture of the dreamy and the curmudgeonly, and a curious opposition from the Liberal Democrats who think that this a rather weak little Bill. They are missing rather a lot.
I, too, must declare an interest. I am also a member of the Manufacturing Science and Finance Union and a former medical scientist, and I am excited by the Bill. That is not because I am a sycophantic Government supporter. I am obviously a Government supporter, but I am no one's sycophant. I am excited because the Bill, in addition to the measures that have already been taken, puts us in a position to do something about some of the fundamental failures of the NHS to deliver on standards. It is the question of clinical standards that is most exciting in the Bill.
This country has some of the world's leading scientists in the field of cancer. British scientists have made fundamental contributions to the advance of cancer therapy. We are one of the world's leaders in cancer
research. Why, then, do the results of treatment in the national health service lag behind America and every other country in Europe, including Estonia? We have the worst cancer survival rates in the civilised world. How do we manage that? We have the talent, yet we get awful results. That tells me that there is something wrong with the way in which the system is operated.

Dr. Harris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Dr. Turner: No, I am sorry, I have only 10 minutes.
I am not suggesting that those results are the fault of particular individuals, and I do not think that suddenly revising the structure will cure the problem overnight, because it will not—things do not work that way. What the health service has lacked up till now—until the creation of NICE and CHIMP—is a mechanism not only for promulgating best practice, but for ensuring that best practice is acted upon. That is essential.
There is an awful lot of clinical literature, but whether the benefits of that literature are spread into patient care is a matter of chance. It depends on how much time consultants or general practitioners have to read the literature and how enthusiastic and conscientious they are.

Dr. Harris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Dr. Turner: I am sorry, I have only 10 minutes.
Some people are excellent, but not everyone achieves the standard of excellence; otherwise we would not have such awful clinical performance. That fact is inescapable. I hope that the Minister is listening, because the way in which I see NICE making its greatest contribution is in evaluating advances in medical research, evaluating new drugs from an independent perspective and circulating advice throughout the system so that we move towards a genuine evidence-based approach to medical practice. Such an approach has been seriously lacking in our system, and that is largely why we do not achieve the results that we should.
NICE by itself is not the total answer. It cannot be, because there are also questions of clinical freedom and so forth. We need CHIMP to carry out inspections to ensure that research is taken notice of on the ground. If a CHIMP team inspects a hospital and finds that its clinical performance is seriously below par and that consultants are ignoring the guidance of NICE, I would expect an adverse report and something to be done in that hospital to improve clinical outcomes.
There is nothing revolutionary about this measure: it is perfectly logical. We undertake inspections in just about every other public service. We have inspected schools since for ever, and we inspect police forces and fire services. We inspect everything that moves, but we have never inspected the health service until now. It is long overdue, and it will make a very big difference.
There has been much discussion about whether vast sums are being added to health service budgets. We think that a lot of money has been provided. The Opposition opposed the increases in the comprehensive spending review, yet they tell us that they would have funded the health service rather better. I cannot square those two assertions.
Having put money into the health service, it is important that we make it count. That is why we need an organisation such as NICE. It should also examine the cost-effectiveness of clinical organisations and the cost-effectiveness of drugs as well as their immediate clinical input. The most expensive drug may, in the long term, be the cheapest. We can get such information only through a serious, in-depth, independent evaluation. We will not get it from the pharmaceutical companies, because they have an interest.
The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) was wise to point to the pharmaceutical industry. It is the only industry we have left with a solid research base, and it is inextricably linked with the national health service. It is a multinational industry that can move very quickly. The national health service has a large customer base. That is important, because it gives us the opportunity to negotiate a sharp deal with the drug companies; and it provides much employment for scientists. In return, if we succeed in raising the standards of the health service, we will provide a marvellous shop window for that industry.
I do not find this an insignificant little Bill. It is potentially an extremely important Bill.

Mr. David Amess: This is a truly socialist Bill, in that it represents a triumph for the Secretary of State. It is a triumph of old Labour over new Labour. The Bill is a disaster, and it is a backward step for the national health service. I am astounded that two Labour Members have told the House that they are excited by the Bill, because when I listened to the Secretary of State's speech he did not seem to be excited by it. Indeed, he could not even be bothered to address the House on the Bill.
When Lord Howe responded to the introduction of the Bill in the House of Lords, he said that
"it is a Bill that seeks to undo much of the good resulting from the work of the previous administration…a measure that, far from providing a platform for improvement, will instead be a recipe for inflexibility, inefficiency, lack of choice and, perhaps above all, tight central control of our health service by politicians in Westminster."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 February 1999; Vol. 597, c. 114.]
My noble Friend was entirely right.
We all know what the Secretary of State decided to do. He made one little announcement. It was supposed to be a public relations job for the Labour party. He failed to convince me, he failed to convince my constituents in Southend, West, and I think that he failed to convince anyone with a modicum of common sense. The national health service has been worse since we have had a Labour Government.
I think that someone at Millbank pressed the wrong button on the computer. Labour has had the cheek to mail a number of Conservative party members in Southend, West exhorting them to give money to the party in connection with the issue of the health service. First, the Labour party thanks my Conservative party members for voting for it in the general election; then it tells them how their vote has helped to change Britain for the better. That is a laugh. Then it asks my Conservative party members:
Do you want better hospitals with more beds and more nurses to care for the sick?


We do, but we certainly will not get them from this rotten Labour Government.
Someone sent me a copy of GP. Labour was keen to quote from GP when it was in opposition, but now that the Secretary of State has the top job he dismisses it as a public relations job for the Conservative party. I have read the issue from top to bottom, and the headline reads:
Chaos reigns on eve of reforms".
GP had conducted an important survey, which found that 71 per cent. of GPs did not support the reforms, 83 per cent. said that they were "not prepared" for them, 70 per cent. felt that they were not part of a group, 93 per cent. were "worried about GMS funds" and 64 per cent. of fundholders were "suffering financially".
In an article in the same magazine, a doctor said that the health service reforms could prove an Armageddon for general practitioners; and, in its comment section, the magazine said:
Since the much-heralded announcement of the so-called new NHS almost two years ago, in true new Labour fashion there has been more rhetoric than action. Guidance has invariably been late and has been drip-fed to the profession, often missing details on the most vital of ingredients—funding.
As we all know, any Labour MP who was honest would get to his feet and say that the Labour party has not delivered on the promise that it gave us on 1 May 1997: it is not funding the national health service properly.
The article continued:
Even as the magical hour for lift-off approached this week, and primary care groups went onto health authority payrolls, some had yet to appoint board members"—
certain of my hon. Friends have mentioned that—
"and vital decisions were still being delayed by the lack of central guidance.
Many Gps have put an immense amount of effort into these reforms, often despite opposing them in principle".
I thought that the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Mr. Austin) talked a lot of sense. I have received a letter; I shall not reveal who it is from, but it refers to undemocratic nurse elections for primary care groups in south Essex. The writer—not a constituent of mine, but someone in Essex—says:
The election process was hijacked so that the nurses were not allowed to nominate or vote for their own candidates. Only Authority backed nominees surfaced from a 'Selection Board'. The local doctors, on the other hand, fellow professionals, ran their own elections with no interference from anybody, and their candidates were accepted. Their process was simple and basic: the nurses had theirs manipulated … this process was abused in South Essex, where nurses found themselves railroaded into accepting candidates in the following manner: All community nurses were invited to meetings jointly organised by the Health Authority and Thameside Community Trust. Here nurses were told quite categorically that a caseload would be a qualifying fundamental requirement, and thus avoid management stooges.
The writer told me that, in the event, management stooges were appointed.
This is a dreadful Bill. It is all about imposing a command and control system on our health service. It gives unprecedented powers to the Secretary of State to interfere in every aspect of the running of our health service, right down to the drugs that a family doctor is able to prescribe. As we have heard, the Bill will abolish the popular, successful system of voluntary GP fundholding. I think it is disgraceful that no Labour Member has stood up and asked what will happen to the

patients of GP fundholders. Do they not deserve care as good as the care that they received under the system of GP fundholding? The Bill is not about raising standards; it is about levelling down. It is a socialist measure.
The establishment of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, PRODIGY and the cash-limited drugs budget will put pressure on family doctors to restrict effective treatment on the ground of cost alone.
When Labour was in opposition, it was fond of quoting all the lobbyists. I have had umpteen letters from the BMA, the Royal College of Midwives, the NHS Confederation, the Royal College of Nursing, the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, but, conveniently, not one Labour Member has quoted from the letters. We know why. They have nothing good to say about the Bill.
I did not notice the BMA applauding the Conservative Government, but it says:
The Bill heralds yet more structural change for doctors after nearly a decade of major upheavals in the National Health Service. The BMA will work with Government to try to make these changes work but would ask for no more changes for some time after this. We need a period of stability now in which doctors can concentrate on quality of service to patients rather than structural reorganisation.
However, the BMA gave the game away: it is down to money. It says:
It is the responsibility of the Secretary of State to allocate funding for the proposals contained in the legislation, but there will need to be a considerable increase in funding to achieve all the proposals in the Bill, particularly the huge agenda envisaged by CHImp"—
what a ridiculous title. It goes on:
Without a significant increase in overall NHS funding, it is inevitable that other parts of the service will see a drop in funding if all these functions are to be carried out. The implementation of the Health Bill cannot be cost neutral.
A worried constituent has written to me on behalf of chiropodists. The Royal College of Midwives is anxious that the present system of regulation of midwifery will be
"wholly replaced through secondary legislation. Whilst the Royal College of Midwives supports the replacement of the United Kingdom Central Committee with a new structure, it is most concerned that the Government have not sufficiently clarified the parameters of the successor professional body."
The Bill may be a great triumph for socialism, but it is a very sad day for the national health service.

Dr. Howard Stoate: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in what is an important debate.
As a practising GP who continues with a small number of surgeries, I am now a member of a primary care group, so I register that as an interest. For many years, several changes have been imposed on us by the NHS. We have heard much rhetoric about the pros and cons of various aspects of the Bill, but—

Mr. Hammond: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Dr. Stoate: No, I cannot give way. I have only 10 minutes.
As someone who is a practising GP and who therefore sees those changes day to day, I am in a better position than many to comment on them. Conservative Members
have waxed lyrical about the benefits and wonderfulness of fundholding, but I tell a different story; it is a personal story, seen at first hand.
We have learned much from the fundholding experience. I would not wish to leave hon. Members with the impression that fundholding has not done a significant amount of good, because it has. We have to be fair: fundholding has taught us a lot. It showed us a lot about management structures and how GPs and others can develop services in their communities, but it has also created enormous problems. It goes completely against the aims and values that Labour Members share.
We have heard that 60 per cent. of GPs are fundholders. That is true, but I can speak from personal experience and for the many hundreds of GPs whom I know personally. Many of those 60 per cent. went into it not voluntarily or with evangelical zeal, but because they had to. They were forced to by all sorts of chicanery and underhand methods. They felt that they had no choice—go into fundholding, or forget about the new member of staff, the development of the practice, the new computer system. Computers were frequently tied to fundholding: no fundholding, no new computer. Pressure was put on my colleagues in an unhappy and underhand fashion.
No Labour Government could accept the two-tier service that was created and the inequalities that were caused by fundholding. It is to the credit to my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department of Health that fundholding has now been ended.
Of course fundholding produced excellence. It was bound to. The cards were loaded so much in its favour that it had to produce excellence, but every time a patient was seen more quickly by a fundholding GP and referred to a consultant, a patient of a non-fundholding GP was pushed down the queue. Every time a patient was seen by a consultant from an outpatient clinic in a surgery, it meant that another patient could not be seen because the consultant was in the doctor's surgery, not in the hospital clinic to see people who would otherwise have been seen from the waiting list.
Of course, therefore, fundholding produced good things and seemed to be wonderful, but it did so at the expense of so many other people who were not achieving that type of service.
It is ludicrous to say that we could have made every GP a fundholder. Once there was no longer an inequality and a two-tiered service, there would no longer be a benefit in fundholding, and the whole system would fall down like a pack of cards.
The new NHS will be fairer, distribute resources more equitably and eliminate two-tierism. It will be needs-led, it will integrate health and social services and reinstate strategic planning, and it will emphasise quality and reduce inequality.
Earlier in the debate, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) talked about the dispossessed. I listened very carefully to what she had to say and even tried to intervene on her. I ask her, on her proposals for introducing money from the private sector, which insurance company would take on

someone with multiple sclerosis, chronic diabetes or infertility? We would get nowhere by asking the private sector to take on those people.

Miss Widdecombe: rose—

Dr. Stoate: I shall give way, as an act of generosity to the right hon. Lady.

Miss Widdecombe: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way.
Again, there is the confusion that the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) showed. Trying to get money in from the private sector is not only about people going and insuring themselves, but about setting up partnerships with the private sector, so that we can benefit from private sector technology, expertise and staffing—as in, for example, St. Peter's hospital in Chertsey, where there is a joint unit, which both partners use and for which the private sector has contributed a huge amount of money. It is a matter of getting additional resources into the NHS, not only of getting people to insure themselves in the private sector.

Dr. Stoate: Unfortunately, the private sector will follow that type of policy only if it can make a profit for itself, which is its fundamental motive. The private sector will provide a service, but only if people pay for it through private insurance, or if the NHS puts public money into the private sector—which gets us no further, as we will be back to exactly where we started.
In Dartford, the HealthCare Partnership primary care group has piloted primary care groups. It is already one year ahead of many other such groups, as it was a pilot for the National Health Service (Primary Care) Act 1997 and thus has one year's more experience than most. It has already expressed an interest in moving on to primary care trust status. The group has been successful in developing primary care services, cutting bureaucracy and gaining control over how local resources are best used for local patients.
To scotch the idea that fundholding was somehow a good thing and non-fundholding a bad thing, that group in my constituency of Dartford consisted of fundholders and non-fundholders who voluntary came together to pool their resources and expertise, because they realised that the two-tier service created by fundholding was not in patients' interests. When working together as a primary care group pilot, they were able to demonstrate improvements in bureaucratic costs and in services, and genuinely to make a difference to people in Dartford.
The experience of people in Dartford, and the improved care being offered to them, will act as a template for primary care groups across the country, as they begin to catch up with my primary care group—which, as I said, is one year ahead.
One of the Bill's purposes is to allow the formation of primary care trusts, which will be freestanding organisations either commissioning care—at level 3—or commissioning and providing community services at level 4.
Yesterday, I spoke to Dr. Alasdair Thompson, the chairman of Dartford's primary care group. As I said, the group was started as a pilot under the 1997 Act and is one


year ahead in the process. The group has been able to find solutions to many of the challenges and has had much more time to consider its future.
Dr. Thompson gave three main reasons why he believes that it is so important that the Bill's provisions enabling trust status should be passed. The first is that there are limitations in the current process. Although primary care groups have freedom in their budgets, trusts will have much further flexibility in purchasing, in providing community services and in joint working with social services.
Secondly, primary care trusts will be able to develop strategic plans for delivering community health services, based on an integrated approach that is agreed by their work force and signed off by their board. The emphasis on developing community services that are closer to the patient's own environment will make a big differences to local services. The community infrastructure that will be needed to support the new hospital in Dartford—which is the first being built under the private finance initiative scheme—may be developed and managed by the primary care trust. In turn, that will lead to increased professional motivation and better clinical practice.
Thirdly, as freestanding bodies, trusts will have far greater freedoms, within their accountability arrangements, in their use of the unified budget—which is likely to include personal medical services schemes, local development contracts and single—handed vacancies—so that there is scope to develop innovative solutions for future work force problems. as described in the primary care investment plan.
Ultimately, of course, the Secretary of State will approve applications to become primary care trusts. I am looking forward to the day when he will be able to approve the trust application from my own group. It will be up to local health authorities to ensure that the process of application for trust status is wide ranging, and includes as much local opinion as possible. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure GPs that progression to trust status will occur only when a clear majority of local GPs are interested in it.
My understanding is that the Bill will not affect GPs' independent contractor status; I would welcome reassurance from the Minister that that is the case. The House will be aware that independent contractor status has been a great strength of British general practice over the years, and has delivered exceptional value for money and excellent quality primary care. British general practice still represents excellent value for money, and quality envied throughout the world.
GPs now form the majority on primary care group boards, but when primary care trusts are set up, with the increased responsibilities and wider range of skills needed, Ministers may think that no longer appropriate. The current proposals are for lay members to form the majority of PCT boards. GPs and nurses, however, can still form the majority on the PCT executives, which will report to the boards.
Dr. Thompson has asked me to seek reassurance from Ministers that the primary care trust executives, which will largely comprise the doctors and nurses who deliver the services and whose livelihoods will depend on decisions made by the board, will have a clear say in the decisions made by the boards.
Primary care trusts will have the freedom, within their accountability arrangements, to allocate resources, develop service arrangements, negotiate incentives and generate income.
The Bill marks the beginning of the process, not the end. It will clear the way for new ways of innovative thinking about how best to deliver top quality primary care for the next century. In my constituency there is already a clear commitment to the process, and I shall finish by quoting from a discussion paper written by my local primary care group as part of its expression of interest in trust status:
The Partnership has taken the view that the philosophy underpinning the establishment of PCGs builds on our partnerships approach to developing health care and to community involvement, which started with joint commissioning with West Kent Health Authority, and continued via the Locality Commissioning group pilot. There is now a greater opportunity for the partnership, as a Primary Care Trust, to further develop our partnerships working as both commissioners and providers of community based services.
That was written not by a group of GPs who are disillusioned and dissatisfied, or sorry about the changes that we are making, but by a group that is ahead of the field and has clearly, and voluntarily, shown its commitment first to primary care groups and now to primary care trusts. Fundholders and non-fundholders are working together for the good of the community, and involving nurses, social services and others.
What could be a better template for what the Government propose than what is happening in my constituency? The programme is one of success, and the Bill will achieve what we set out to achieve. I commend it to the House.

Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham): I want to draw together two strands from the opening speeches. The Secretary of State made passing reference to the fact that the Government were embarking on an NHS-wide standard-setting exercise focused specifically on the needs of the elderly and the treatment of old people within the health service, and the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) spoke on the theme of rationing. The right hon. Lady, as we would expect, made her point in a polemical way, but it would help the debate if we treated the idea of rationing not in a polemical or a pejorative way, but as a simple factual statement of what happens when there is a gap between supply and demand.
Rationing can be done well or badly, fairly or unfairly, and on the basis either of clinical judgments or of arbitrary bureaucratic judgments. I shall pursue that issue, especially in relation to the treatment of the elderly, and the way in which the Government-inspired exercise that the Secretary of State mentioned might work. Clearly, the question is about more than how rationing works. There is a resource issue, too. The gap between supply and demand will vary depending on the resources available, which is why the Liberal Democrats consistently draw attention to the under-resourcing of the system.
Some Labour Members seemed wholly blind to that problem. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner), who has now left the Chamber, presented himself as an expert on cancer treatment. I am sure that he is, but he seemed wholly unaware that British funding of cancer services is seriously deficient in relation to that
of comparable western countries. That deficiency is reflected in the fact that key chemotherapy drugs are not available to British women in the same way that they are to women overseas.
There is a resources issue, but there is also a deeper question about how rationing is carried out. I shall focus specifically on how it is applied to older patients in the NHS. In principle, care is allocated on a wholly idealistic basis. The codes of conduct of the professions make it clear that clinicians should not discriminate on the ground of age or on any other basis. However, there is a growing concern among elderly people and the organisations that represent them that age is becoming a basis for rationing, often quite explicitly. To some extent, elderly people are bound to feel the adverse effects of the shortage of resources in the NHS because they use it more frequently than others–40 per cent. of the users of the NHS are retired people. However, there is growing concrete evidence of age being used as a rationing criterion.
I gave several examples of that when I introduced a ten-minute Bill some months ago, and it is worth repeating some of them because they are highly relevant to the debate. Rehabilitation programmes for people who have had strokes do not involve a great deal of resources, but a lot of research shows that many health districts and trusts use a specific age cut-off to limit the availability of the service.
Another more understandable example is kidney dialysis. The treatment is very costly and it is widely known that elderly people have great difficulty in getting on to the programmes, although all the medical evidence that I have seen suggests that they are just as likely to benefit as younger patients.
Cancer screening also arouses strong feelings. Active efforts are made to ensure that younger women are screened, but less effort is made for older women, even though the evidence suggests that they benefit just as much from early detection. That is a specific, and probably rather absent-minded example, of age-based rationing.
Drug rationing is at the heart of much of the debate. My final example relates to the drugs available for people suffering from senile dementia. There is controversy about the benefits of some of the new drugs becoming available and clinical trials are continuing, but the balance of evidence that I have seen suggests that if the drugs were widely available they would considerably reduce the damage, inconvenience and great humiliation that people suffer as a result of Alzheimer's. The drugs are severely rationed and there are enormous disparities between different areas.
The process should be more open. I hope that the Government will address the problem. I should like to hear more about what the Secretary of State meant when he said that the Government were embarking on a process of standard setting, experiment and research into the treatment of elderly people in the NHS. Part of the problem is that not enough research has been done.
Several organisations representing elderly people, as well as professional organisations including physiotherapists, have said that it would be helpful if there were a clause in primary legislation that specifically prohibited discrimination or rationing—if we are to use

the word—on the ground of age. Decisions should be based purely on professional clinical judgment and the quality of life that could be achieved.

Ms Julia Drown: I welcome the duty of co-operation that will be placed on health authorities and others. The Labour Government are already making a difference in my constituency on that issue. Health trusts and my local social services have made it clear to me that the encouragement that they have been given since the election to get together and work in the interests of local people has made a difference to the services that they provide. I have been pleased to see the good work that is being done locally. I also very much welcome the abolition of fundholding, which not only created a two-tier service, but was incredibly expensive to administer. It is outrageous for the NHS to spend so much money on administering the scheme.
The Conservatives have claimed that GPs became fundholders by choice. I saw the performance objectives of regional health service managers when GPs were being encouraged to take up fundholding. Those objectives, presumably from the Department of Health, clearly stated that the proportion of fundholders in the area had to be increased.
That was a funny way of creating a simple, open and rational choice for all GPs. if one really wanted a fair choice for GPs, one would not give preferential grants to one group—GPs were told that if they became fundholders they would get extra money for computers—and one would not tell health authority managers that they must increase the number of fundholders in their area.
The Labour Government's approach, creating primary care groups instead, strikes me as far more sensible and rational. To reduce the number of commissioning groups from 3,000 to about 500 is obviously a way of reducing bureaucracy, yet ensuring that a much wider group of people in each area can have an influence on the health care that is provided. I congratulate the Government on not limiting the system to GPs. Community nurses and other lay members can have an influence, and that is much better than the narrow focus instituted by the Tories in the fundholding scheme.
I welcome the Bill's emphasis on quality of care and the introduction of the Commission for Health Improvement, but I seek clarification on several points. Users, carers and patient groups want to be sure that their views will be included in discussions on their local health services in the new NHS. I agree with that aim, but will it be best achieved by creating a legal duty or by providing guidance and spreading best practice?
Under the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, there is a legal duty to consult various people, but that has given rise to some bureaucratic exercises in which a glossy 200-page brochure has been sent to every single voluntary organisation in an area, many of which simply do not know what to do with it and certainly do not have the time to examine it in any detail. That is not necessarily the best way of achieving real consultation. We must find out what works and ensure that the views of users, carers and patient groups are properly taken into account.
I seek clarification about the membership of primary care groups and trusts. The NHS is much more than doctors and nurses, and one of its great strengths is
vivek


teamwork, with the input of all the different professions, giving the best patient care to everyone. It is important, if all the needs of all the different areas of the country are to be met, that the membership of the groups and trusts should not be set in stone, but should be able to change and be fluid over time.
Physiotherapists, pharmacists, health visitors, occupational therapists and midwives all have much to add and can greatly influence and improve primary care services. I am not asking for guaranteed places for members of each of those professions, as what works in one place or time may not work so well in another, but we need fluidity to get the best out of primary care.
I seek clarification on the duty of trusts to be responsible for the quality of care that they provide. For me, quality of care is not about producing glossy documents to match the glossy annual accounts that many trusts now produce; it is about listening seriously to patients and users views on the services provided by their local trust and about seriously challenging the results of clinical audit in every single trust.
I hope that the responsibility for providing quality of care will be extended in time to all aspects of the NHS and to the private sector, but I am not convinced that now is the right time to put the details of that implementation into law. It is the right time for the Government to make a commitment to ensure quality of care across the board, whether by the NHS or by the private sector.
Other hon. Members have said that regulation of quality of care should be applied in the same way to the private sector as the Bill would apply it to the public sector. The Health Committee is considering this issue at the moment and I still have an open mind as to the best way forward. There are attractions in having the same body to regulate both the public and the private sector, and some people have suggested that CHIMP should be the organisation that reviews all health facilities. However, significant difficulties would need to be overcome. First, part of the private sector is already monitored by a separate body, and it is proposed that it will be monitored by regional commissions for care standards. Secondly, the private sector does not work in the same way as the NHS. In the private sector, a lead consultant will book a session in a theatre and does not work in a team with junior doctors. That alone suggests that the arrangements should be separate. Thirdly, many patients go to the private sector because they want something different. We would need to think about those issues carefully before we apply the same rules to both sectors.
The last point on which I seek clarification concerns the Government's excellent commitment to getting more women on to the boards of trusts and other public bodies. The aim is for women to make up 50 per cent. of trust board members and 40 per cent. of chairs. I would like to see those figures be even higher over time. However, we could start to change some of the language to try to encourage women to join in. The Bill and its schedules mention chairmen, but we should start talking about chairs. That usage is important, as the Department of Health recognises. When it talks about its aims for appointing women, it talks about chairs, but everywhere else it talks about chairmen. I hope that we can amend the Bill to put that point right, because it is important, especially as most of the staff managed by the boards are women.
With those concerns expressed, I wish to register my support for the Bill. It will start a great shift in the NHS's culture, so that staff can co-operate in the interests of patients, and where the quality of service—which is what is important to patients—is seen as important in itself. It shows that the NHS is not just about placing a duty on trusts to cover their financial responsibilities, but about something much more. It will take time to change the culture, but both staff and patients want that change. They do not want the Tories internal market, which treated the NHS like a game of Monopoly. Patients want an NHS in which teams work together to provide what counts—quality patient care.

Mr. John Randall: The hon. Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) mentioned a problem with the terminology of chairmen and chairs. I have spent most of my adult working life selling chairs, and that is where they should remain.
The Bill gives effect to the legislative requirements laid out in the Government's three health White Papers. The Government are presenting it as the centrepiece of an ambitious health reform programme. Ministers have heralded it as offering a radical future for the NHS, promising to improve the quality of health care across the country, eradicating unfairness and reducing bureaucracy. Rather than fulfilling the Government's ambitious rhetoric for the NHS, the Bill will make the health service more inflexible and inefficient, reduce choice and, regrettably, centralise decision making.
I shall concentrate my remarks on the issue of fundholding and the new primary care groups. As we have heard repeatedly this evening, it was the previous Government who introduced GP fundholding. It has been a focus of particular hostility from the Labour party since its introduction in 1990. Fundholding offered doctors greater financial and clinical autonomy, while allowing improvements in patient care. It enabled efficiency savings to be reinvested in the system, resulting in shorter waiting times and the development of new specialist services. Even the Government have come round to acknowledging that. Their White Paper stated that the introduction of fundholding had enabled doctors to
"sharpen the responsiveness of hospital services and extend the range of services available in their own surgeries".
As we have heard this evening, fundholding received the support of many groups, including the British Medical Association and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. GP fundholding encompassed 60 per cent. of NHS patients. Sadly, the Government have now killed off fundholding despite acknowledging its success, and in the face of widespread support.
The Bill proposes instead to create primary care groups and primary care trusts, leading to the biggest change in the family doctor service since the creation of the NHS. That is despite the promise of the Prime Minister before the election that there would be no great upheavals in the service. The Bill will coerce GPs into the new primary groups whether or not they want to join them. There is the question of the costs associated with these new structures. Initial estimates vary from £150 million per year to more than £300 million per year, without accounting for the new structures start-up costs—at a time when the
Government want to save money on bureaucracy and have budgeted for savings. Under fundholding, any extra administrative costs were more than offset by efficiency savings. The new system will be more costly and less efficient.
The Office of Health Economics has predicted that the organisational costs of delivering health care are likely to increase. The Institute of Child Health stated that the cost of developing three to five-year health improvement programmes will more than offset even the most generous assessment of savings made by cutting the number of commissioning bodies. With that background, it is difficult to work out how the Government can claim that their reforms will make substantial savings that will be directed to front-line patient care.
The BMA found that fundholding encouraged accountability and that GPs were truly willing to share the decision-making process. The Audit Commission said that fundholders introduced more services to patients, improved communications with hospitals and were more cost effective in their drug prescribing. The main criticism of fundholding was that it was a two-tier service, but the Government propose to introduce a four-tier service. If two tiers were bad, how can four be good?
The Government's answer to GP fundholding is to have a compulsory system whereby between 50 and 100 GPs are forced into the same group. Under the old arrangements, patients were usually able to choose the fundholding GP, but under the primary care group system, patients will be assigned to a primary care group on the basis of where they live. That contradicts one of the central points of criticism that the Labour Opposition used to make about the operation of the NHS internal market.
The primary care groups became active on 1 April this year and replace the voluntary nature of fundholding with a compulsory approach. GPs will remain able to commission services from hospitals for their patients, but will not be able to act individually as in fundholding. The White Paper stated that PCGs should develop around natural communities, but the boundaries have been fixed by the Department of Health and GPs have consequently been coerced into a designated geographical area. A BMA poll published on 4 February showed that 55 per cent. of GPs would not be willing to take an active role in their local primary care group. It bodes ill for the future of primary care group management if GPs prove to be unwilling to sacrifice time to serve on their boards.
In addition to the lack of enthusiasm for the new PCGs among GPs, the fact that groups, rather than individual fundholders, will make service agreements with trusts means that individual practices will lose the flexibility that previously existed. The Government's hostility to individual practices retaining their autonomy could lead to a loss of the specialist services that many fundholders have developed for their patients.
Under the new resource allocation formula, there will be little incentive for practices to make savings because the bulk of efficiency gains will be made by the whole PCG, not the individual practice. The inefficient will be carried by the group, with the result that the entire group will suffer financially. The direct incentives, which existed under fundholding, to be as efficient and effective as possible will simply disappear.
The abolition of GP fundholding will not lead only to financial inefficiencies—according to the BMA, it will lead to substantial regional variations In care depending on where a patient lives. Under fundholding, patients were almost always able to choose a fundholding GP if they believed that they would therefore receive a better service. Under PCGs, that will no longer be possible.
PCGs and PCTs will reduce the freedom of individual doctors to run their own affairs. They are compulsory bodies, and GPs must join them. They will control contracts, and prescribing budgets for individual GPs will be at the mercy of collective decisions. Flexibility will be reduced, with GPs unable to switch patients from one hospital to another without protracted negotiation. That will add pressure to waiting lists and waiting times. There will no longer be the same drive to improve hospital services.
The Bill will result in a far less efficient, more centralised system of health care. It will reverse the shift in the balance of power from the health bureaucracy to the GP that fundholding made possible. It is a very bad Bill, and I shall oppose it.

Laura Moffatt: I have waited a long time to stand here tonight, both during the years that I spent in the health service dying to have a Government who really cared about the NHS, and during this evening's interesting debate. I have waited for change not only as a nurse, but as a patient.
As a nurse, I found it abhorrent to have to tick forms saying that some people had the advantage of being GP fundholder patients for whom there would be extra care and would be able to rise up the waiting list. I deplored that practice deeply, and I did not want to have to do it.
As a patient, I have the common nurse's complaint of varicose veins, and have waited for two years for treatment. When I rang the hospital to ask what my chances were of being treated soon, I was told that there had been a huge mistake and that, because I came from a GP fundholding practice, I should have been treated a year earlier. When faced with that sort of thing, I realise how important it is to be here today.
I was interested to hear a former Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), say that the only way in which to judge who held the balance of power in the health service was by seeing who sent Christmas cards to whom. The concept that we might hold each other in mutual respect—that we might want to send Christmas cards to each other because we value the contribution that each of our colleagues makes to the health service—is completely alien to the Conservatives. They are unable even to contemplate it, but the Bill does so, valuing equally the contributions of everyone in the health service and ensuring that we can all work together.
Goodness knows that difficult decisions must be made to balance the needs of the community against the desire to ensure that we have the best service and to ensure the clinical excellence of services provided. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence and the Commission for Health Improvement are our best opportunity to ensure that we work together.
The duty of co-operation excites me because of my local government background. Was it not local authorities that made sure that we had clean water and that people


lived in decent housing? Now, after all the wasted years not being consulted by those involved in health services, they are back next door to their colleagues in the health service, making sure that they are able to contribute to the improvement of the health of all our people. That is the flavour of the Bill. 
The Bill is designed to create a new confidence in the NHS, a confidence that we are beginning to build with the staff. We now talk to NHS staff. There was a huge consultation process involving nurses, who were asked what they thought. I have here a fax from just one nurse in my constituency who said, "I want to contribute and write five pages to Frank Dobson about the way that we should move forward." It is crucial that we listen to those people who are committed to the service.
Staff are the health service's greatest asset. As a former nurse who was pleased about the recognition that nurses have just received—a recognition not only of their contribution to the service but in terms of their pay packets—I cannot forget other members of staff who work in the service. I could not have done my job without the people in the laboratories who helped me to get the results of blood tests as quickly as possible so that we could do our work on the wards. We must think about those people now.
It was bad enough when I had to collect a particularly disgusting specimen—I am sorry; I am a nurse, and I always get down to this sort of talk—but I would often think of the poor person who had to open and test it the next day. Some of those people could be earning just £8,000 a year, so I hope that some can be included in a pay review, just as nurses have been. Nurses are very pleased with their recognition, but we cannot forget some of the other NHS staff.
The Bill is about confidence, about how we recognise the value of NHS staff and about how we communicate and work with them. That is why there should be a duty to communicate with the voluntary sector as well as all the other people involved. They understand what is going on, and this is our best opportunity.
I greatly welcome the new regulatory systems and the new systems of self-regulation of many professions allied to nursing. Some are incredibly invasive—for examplee, chiropody involves many sharp instruments and even anaesthetics. Many are not registered or regulated, and I want them all brought into a regulatory system.
It is 20 years this month since I joined the Labour party. I joined because I wanted a Labour Government to do what this Labour Government are doing. I am extremely proud that this new Labour Government have the guts to deal with the issues that we think they should, bringing the NHS back to the people and ensuring that the staff work together, instead of fighting among themselves. We want people to be able to say that we have an NHS of which we can be extremely proud.

Mr. Michael Fabricant): I do not share the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) for the Bill one jot, and nor do doctors in my constituency. Instead, I share the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess).
The Bill exemplifies everything that new Labour stands for. Like others before it, it sounds like a major advance, an improvement and a benefit to our people. It is not. In

fact—[Interruption.] Gullible Labour Members are actually cheering me. The Bill is rather like the Budget. The Budget sounded great at the time, but a few weeks of analysis has exposed gaping holes both in Labour's arithmetic and in the benefits that it was purported to provide.
The Secretary of State was full of rhetoric. To the gullible on the Government Benches, may I make one thing very clear? The Bill does nothing to abolish the internal market that the Minister so deprecates. It cannot, because even this Government recognise the improvements in patient care that the market has introduced. Instead, there is tinkering with the system, whichwill reduce, not improve, patient care.
At a stroke, 60 per cent. of all patients—the patients who were cared for by GP fundholders, which includes all patients in my constituency, I might add—in this nation will see a reduction in standards of care. The remaining 40 per cent. will not see an improvement either. Changes to the way in which GPs will be funded will put paid to that.
I have news for the Labour Members who have loyally read their party brief. This Bill will go the same way as the Budget: it looks good, but, when one has had a chance to analyse it and see what has not been trumpeted, it is very bad news. It is particularly bad news in Lichfield and Burntwood, where all GPs have been fundholders.
This is nothing to do with levelling up; it is all about levelling down. This is about the Government not being able to resist poking their collective nose into things about which they know nothing: patient care. Fundholding empowered GPs; this little piece of collectivisation puts power back into the hands of Big Brother who, in this instance, does not know best.
I shall air six areas which concern me most. I do not expect the Minister to answer here and now the various points that I-shall put to him, but I ask him to make a note of them. I should be grateful if he would write to me on them because they have been raised with me by doctors who know about patient care.
Although all GPs in Lichfield and Burntwood are fundholders, that is not so nationally. Unlike the proposals before us, GP fundholding was voluntary. Have the Government ever asked themselves why some GPs did not want to become fundholders? It was often because they did not want to become involved in practice management. Not every doctor has the skill required, regardless of whether a practice manager is appointed. Now, as my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) pointed out, all doctors will have to join a primary care group—whether they like it or not, but the financial resources are just not there to provide adequate practice management under the proposed scheme.
My constituency is typical. Executive support is quoted to be about £3 a patient, which is far too low for the work required. Even worse, such support does not amount to £3 because it is not ring-fenced. Many primary care groups have not received anything like that level of funding.
The primary care group that covers Lichfield and other towns too has to share a chief officer with another PCG. According to the PCG newsletter published in my area, which was received on 8 April, he is the only permanent member of staff. Furthermore, it is becoming clear that
Lichfield practices are sharing other posts, including that of deputy chief officer and a PCG accountant. That level of staffing is wholly inadequate.
Secondly, the situation that I have just described may seriously disadvantage Lichfield and Burntwood, as the other PCG is Tamworth, which has a new hospital, but needs to secure further funding from the PCG. Executive underfunding may lead to Tamworth being favoured by the executive, thus disadvantaging the Lichfield and Burntwood. I do not expect the Minister to answer the following specific constituency question now, but will he assure me that Lichfield Victoria hospital and the Hammerwich hospital will not close as a direct consequence of this Bill and PCGs?
Thirdly, like so much other legislation before the House, there is not enough detail in the Bill. Too many decisions can be made by the Secretary of State, and there is no real information about funding.
Fourthly, the majority of GPs are prepared to assist in fair rationalisation of resources; but, if the system is to be fair, all patients and all doctors should start with a level playing field. I am sure that the Minister and the whole House would agree with that. But—and it is a big but—[Interruption.] It is all very well Labour Members laughing because they have read their Labour party brief, but have they spoken to GPs in their constituencies? Have they actually spoken to fundholders? Have they got off their bottoms and gone back to their constituencies and found out what is really happening on the ground? I think not, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The most important aspect in Lichfield and Burntwood will be the handling of any overspend by the South Staffordshire health authority for the financial year just ended. My near neighbour, the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), raised that point. If the health authority—any health authority—is overspent as at 31 March this year, will that money be sliced off PCG funding for the year 1999–2000?
That is very important because it is not just Lichfield and Tamworth and the South Staffordshire health authority that have an overspend. I notice that the House has now gone very quiet, because hon. Members had not thought of that. If the money were sliced off PCG funding, it would unfairly penalise GP practices—[Laughter.] If hon. Members have thought about it and are finding it so funny, what will they tell GPs in their constituencies? Slicing off the money would unfairly penalise GP practices that are spending within their budget under fundholding. Will the Minister please write to me on that point? Would an overspend of the health authority take money away from the PCGs?
South Staffordshire health authority has ended the year approximately £7 million overspent, as the hon. Member for Cannock Chase said. It is now clear that PCGs will almost certainly not start with a level playing field, as that situation will be carried forward to PCG budgets.
Fifthly, handling all the changes to date has taken an enormous amount of GP time. Do the Government recognise that? Do they understand that the work has not been recognised by proper funding of locum costs while GPs are away from their practices, milling through the paperwork that the change has generated? How do the Government intend to compensate for that? At the moment, no compensation plan is available.
Finally, improving the quality of GP services to the community is part of a doctor's philosophy, so many have no problem with the proposals for clinical governance, the Commission for Health Improvement or the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. Both are fine in theory.
Unfortunately, the resources for those initiatives are not forthcoming. It has now been confirmed that South Staffordshire health authority and other health authorities will provide no financial resources for clinical governance, and the only conclusion to be drawn from that is that the aim of most GPs to provide the highest standards of care is not supported by the health authorities—or the Government, who have not funded it properly.
The recurring theme is that the major changes proposed for the NHS will not be supported by special funding. Reliance on NHS staff dedication to continue giving more than they are paid for must come to an end eventually. So many facets of the latest reforms are not funded, despite headline increases of the NHS budget, and staff will become alienated as, once again, they are expected to provide even more for nothing. If the Government truly support their NHS reforms, why is the funding to allow professionals to deliver their vision not available?
A Lichfield doctor wrote to me last night by e-mail—and, just to show my dedication, I tell the House that I received it in my office at 12 minutes past 10 last night. He wrote:

"I am fully prepared to follow NICE advice but for it not to be funded or balanced by telling me which"—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I am afraid we shall never know.

Mr. Philip Hammond: The debate has been distinguished by the participation, from the Opposition Benches, of no fewer than three former Secretaries of State for Health and one former Health Minister. In addition, we have had the benefit of a considered and reasoned debate in the other place, and I hope that the Government will yet take the opportunity to show that they can listen to experience and that they will respond.
I am grateful in particular to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) for pointing out that the Bill will not abolish the internal market despite the Government's rhetoric; to my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) for introducing me to the "Christmas card flow" method of calculating relative power within the NHS—perhaps he predicts that, next year, the Secretary of State will be overwhelmed with Christmas cards—and to my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley) for drawing the House's attention to the fact that the Secretary of State has already succeeded in creating an oppressive climate of fear in the NHS. I am grateful also to my hon. Friends the Members for Orpington (Mr. Horam) and for North Dorset (Mr. Walter) for emphasising, respectively, the importance of the evolutionary, the naturally Conservative, approach to our health service and the meaninglessness and vacuousness of the so-called duty of partnership, which in any event already exists in national health service legislation.
I am sorry to say that, with one or two minor exceptions, I have heard nothing from Labour Members showing any original thought. I can only voice my concern for the one or two Labour Members who expressed themselves excited by the Bill. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) for asking the Minister whether the Government will now accept the Lords amendment requiring the majority of general practitioners in a primary care group to consent before that group evolves into a primary care trust. I look forward to the Minister's answer.
Anyone who listened to the Labour party's pre-election rhetoric, anyone who has heard the extravagant language of the Government's health policy announcements and their re-announcements, and anyone who has been taken in by the creative accounting of the comprehensive spending review, will be asking himself why the NHS is delivering a worse standard of service than it was two years ago. Anyone considering the huge challenges facing our health care delivery system must be struck by the complete inadequacy of the Bill—apparently it is the flagship measure of the Government's health agenda—to meet those challenges.
It is a mean little Bill, driven in equal measure by political spite, the instinctive desire to centralise and the Government's need to put in place by stealth a mechanism to ration NHS care and to shift the responsibility for that rationing away from the Government and on to the shoulders of the medical profession.
The Bill says nothing about the real challenge facing the NHS, which is that of matching supply with demand in the face of dramatic medical advances and huge demographic changes. It says nothing also about the need to develop a broader resource base for health care provision to bring Britain into line with the levels of spending, the quality of provision and the range of choice that are available to the citizens of its European neighbours. The Bill does not mention the issue of rationing or the mechanisms that will be needed for an on-going, open and transparent determination of the limits of availability within our NHS.
The Bill does nothing that will address the deteriorating service that is facing patients. Similarly, it will do nothing for the extra 200,000 patients who are waiting to see a consultant, such as Mr. Tony Wiese, whom I met yesterday in his home at Woodbridge, Suffolk. Mr. Wiese cares passionately about the NHS as a relatively young multiple sclerosis sufferer in the secondary progressive stage of the disease.
Mr. Wiese recently asked his GP to prescribe him a drug that he had been prescribed in 1994 but had abandoned because of side effects. Now that the disease has advanced, quite reasonably Mr. Wiese wants to try it again. His GP told him that he would need an out-patient consultation at his local hospital and she referred him accordingly. On 26 March, Mr. Wiese received the following letter from Ipswich hospital NHS trust:
Dear Mr. Wiese, an appointment has been made for you to attend Dr. Wroe's neurology clinic on Monday 25th September 2000 at 2.30 pm.
Mr. Wiese will have to wait 18 months just to see a consultant to obtain a prescription for a drug that has already been prescribed for him once before. That is an 18-month wait for someone suffering from a progressive degenerative disease. Is that the sort of service that the

Minister expects to deliver in his modern and dependable new NHS? It is that sort of quality of service issue that the Government should be addressing in this Bill. The Minister might want to think about the specific example that I have quoted as he prepares himself for MS awareness week, next week.
Do not let me give the impression that the Bill does not have a central coherent theme, because it certainly does. However, it is one that is hidden from view. It is stealthily concealed by language and presentation, like the Chancellor's tax rises. It puts in place the mechanisms of a sophisticated but unacknowledged rationing system. Primary care trusts, with their limited range of referral options and the inclusion of prescribing budgets within the cash-limited envelope, will be in the front line of that rationing mechanism. They will operate within guidance issued by NICE based not only on clinical effectiveness, but on cost-effectiveness of drugs and treatments.
The chairman of NICE has already made it clear that he may have to recommend that a drug or a treatment be not made available because of resource shortages. CHIMP will be able to intervene, question clinical practice, demand information and challenge doctors' decisions, but it does not end there. The Bill as introduced in the other place gave powers to the Government to control the medical profession in an unprecedented way, so that they could effectively end self-regulation if they chose.
Thanks only to the vigilance of my noble Friends, that threat has been somewhat diluted, but the loss of choice in referrals, the ominous cloud cast by PCTs over the independent contractor status of GPs and the pincer movement of cash limits on prescribing budgets and NICE guidance enforced by CHIMP will spell the end of the traditional role of the GP as an advocate for his patient. With it will be lost any proxy for the informed consumer in our health care system.
It goes on. The unprecedented powers that the Government are giving themselves to control prices of pharmaceutical products by law can—and, I predict, will—be used by them to force companies not to make available in the United Kingdom drugs that the Government do not want to be available.
So, underlying the provisions of the Bill is a plan for the creation of a comprehensive mechanism for controlling demand and limiting supply of NHS health care by limiting the power and freedom of doctors; removing the choice enjoyed not only by patients of fundholders, but by all patients; controlling what drugs are available in the UK market; and increasing the Secretary of State's ability to direct the health service centrally—all that while denying the existence of rationing.
The Bill does not even begin to address the real and crucial problem of resourcing, which underlies all the other problems faced by the system. So how did the Government get themselves into this corner—centralising in the name of local autonomy, cutting services in the name of levelling up and imposing massive, expensive and unnecessary change on a health service to which, in 1996, the Prime Minister pledged that there would be "no great upheavals" under Labour? They are pinned there by three unwise political commitments, the first of which is the hostile position that they adopted in opposition, on the basis of dogma rather than reason, to the principle of the internal market and, in particular, to GP fundholding.
The second unwise commitment is the Government's ill-advised pre-election pledge to cut waiting lists by 100,000—regardless of the cost to patient care in the NHS as a whole and regardless of the distortion of clinical priorities that that entailed. The third—which has been raised to the status of a political creed in itself by frequent, if increasingly unconvincing, repetition by Ministers—is the denial that rationing exists in the NHS.
Thus have the Government inevitably committed themselves to an agenda of centralising control, distorting clinical priorities, reducing choice, creating the mechanisms of organised rationing without ever acknowledging it and dismantling GP fundholding—the foundation on which a truly modern health service could have been built. Indeed, the abolition of GP fundholding—the single most important of the changes proposed in the Bill—ranks with the end of tax relief on private health insurance premiums for the over-60s as an act of pure political spite—an exercise in dogma.
Fundholding worked. Most GPs recognised that, the Audit Commission and the OECD have said so and even the Labour party's own expert advisers recommended that it should not abolish the fundholding system. Fundholding practices have been effective in securing for their patients improvements in secondary provision and delivery of a wider range of high quality primary health care services. They were responsive to the needs of their patients and they would have been quite capable of delivering the Government's health care agenda. Their abolition is purely politically motivated.
Dragooning GPs, independent contractors, into enforced co-operatives, where 50 or 100 of them have to work together, is a recipe for disaster. To remove the practice as the basic unit of the system is to go against the grain of human nature. It will reduce doctors' individual freedom to act on behalf of their patients, reduce the range of services that they can offer and reduce their incentives to improve their efficiency and to demand efficiency from the hospitals serving them.
Of course fundholding was not perfect. The NHS is a large and complex organisation and change takes time to be effective. Fundholding was still in a relatively early stage of its development—Conservative Members would be the first to recognise that—but it offered a basis on which to build. The major objection to it, that it led to inequality between the patients of fundholding and non-fundholding practices, could easily have been addressed by a genuine levelling up—a universalisation of fundholding to ensure that all patients enjoyed those benefits, rather than the levelling down, which is Labour's basic instinct.
On 18 January, the Secretary of State said:
"primary care groups provide incentives for all concerned to 'level tip' to the standards of the best." — [Official Report, 18 January 1999; Vol. 323, c. 594.]
Since then, I and my hon. and noble Friends have sought assurances from the Government that none of the 60 per cent. of patients who had fundholding GPs would lose access to services as a result of the transition from fundholding to PCGs. We have had no answer, and we could not have an answer because those services are already being lost—psychiatric services in Stafford and

Leicester, physiotherapy in Luton and Hertfordshire, diabetes and asthma clinics in north London and counselling in Bath, to name but a few.
Therefore, for 60 per cent. of patients, the bottom line is already clear. The Government's reforms have produced an immediate reduction in primary care services. I am still waiting for an explanation of how, even within the apparently elastic confines of new Labourspeak, a reduction in services can be described as levelling up. Instead of seeking to build upon and improve those parts of the primary care system that were demonstrably delivering, and encouraging those that were not to emulate them, the Government chose to sweep them away, replacing them with a structure that looks backwards for its inspiration, not forwards.
One thing that we can be sure about with the Government is that, the more extravagant the claims, the more flamboyant the language, the further from the claims the reality is likely to be. So it is with the reform of primary health care. We are told that primary care is being modernised, that local accountability is being strengthened, but an old-fashioned centrally directed structure is being reimposed. We are told that it is being done in the interests of equality. If that is so, it is the equality of the Soviet era—a levelling down to equal misery for all. The end result is a commissioning system that is less, not more, responsive to patient needs.
In the three hours or so since my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) outlined the Opposition's objections to the Bill, we have heard from Labour Members not a rebuttal of those objections, not a reasoned response to her concerns, but a recital of the Labour party's official dogma. I say this to Labour Members: if the NHS is to be a success in its second 50 years, they must resist the temptation to love it to death. We all share the desire for improved health care delivery. Conservative Members do not believe that the Bill remotely begins to address the issues that must be faced if that is to be achieved.
Of course we object to the way in which the Bill substitutes political control for professional independence, bureaucratic direction for market forces and compulsion for choice, but much more fundamental is the Government's continued refusal to address the resource issue or even to acknowledge that it exists. A Government who genuinely put health at the top of their agenda would be using their flagship health legislation to address that issue, to look forward to the resourcing of our health care system into the 21st century, and, by that test, the Government have failed miserably.
The Bill attacks GPs' traditional role. It attacks all clinicians' traditional professional freedom. It eliminates choice for patients. The end result, whatever the Government's rhetoric, is a highly prescriptive system reversing the trend under the previous Government of devolving power and reverting to the discredited principle that "Whitehall knows best". Behind the rhetoric, the Bill is a recipe for inflexibility, inefficiency, lack of choice and increased bureaucracy. I urge the House to vote for the amendment and deny the Bill a Second Reading.

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham): The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham): The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) launched


a fierce attack in an attempt to divert attention from our success in reducing the numbers on waiting lists. She produced what in some parts of the trade are known as killer facts.
The Official Report will confirm that she told the House that Southampton general's waiting lists have trebled since the election. I can tell the right hon. Lady that the Southampton University Hospitals NHS trust waiting list is now more than 1,000 below the level of March 1997.
The right hon. Lady's second killer fact was the accusation that the chief executive of Salisbury health care NHS trust—I have an interest because I live in Southampton and it is just up the road from me—had written a letter to consultants telling them to stop putting patients on the waiting list. The letter gave three options, and the right hon. Lady mentioned two of them. She said that one option was to reduce the numbers on the list. She did not tell us that the chief executive had said that that risked inconveniencing patients and GPs, that it could expose patients to clinical risk and that it would merely pass the problem on to next year. The other option she mentioned was to use the private sector. That happens in some parts of the country if NHS capacity is full. However, she did not mention the third option, which was to increase NHS capacity, and that is what the Salisbury health care NHS trust did. It treated an extra 500 patients during February and March alone.
The right hon. Lady's speech can be judged on those facts. It was either misleading or just plain wrong. Fortunately, many of the other speeches had considerably greater weight. My hon. Friends the Members for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) and for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) spoke about the importance of the Government's quality agenda. My hon. Friends the Members for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) and for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), and the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) talked of the importance of close co-operation between the national health service and social services. They will have noted the important partnership proposals for co-operation, which will enable those two bodies to pool resources and powers.lb/>
My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) set out clearly the problems of attempting to apply our proposals for raising quality in the national health service to the independent sector as though the two were exactly the same. My hon. Friends the Members for Dartford (Dr. Stoate), for Bedford (Mr. Hall), for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell), for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) and for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) spoke in different ways about the problems that arose from fundholding and the improvements that they envisaged would come from our proposals on primary care. A number of hon. Members spoke of the optimism and achievements of their own primary care groups.
My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Mr. Austin) talked about the importance of partnership, and I assure him that health improvement programmes will be published with full details of whom and how they have consulted on the drawing up of those proposals.
The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) raised a number of important points. I can tell him that an interim regulatory impact assessment of our pharmaceutical proposals has been produced and is in the Library. A further stage in that process will take place when an agreement has been reached.
The right hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley) raised, among other things, some local PFI issues, and I shall look into those matters for her. The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) spoke of the achievements of his local hospitals in reducing waiting lists, and I acknowledge his contribution to the debate. We also heard from a number of hon. Members, including the hon. Members for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall), for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) and for Southend, West (Mr. Amess), who expressed scepticism about our proposals, although without a great deal of evidence to back up their arguments. I hope to respond to other hon. Members during my speech.
We must remember that when the Opposition were in government, they fostered division and competition in the health service instead of co-operation and collaboration. They failed to establish a framework to ensure that the NHS delivered consistently high-quality services to patients, wherever they lived. Instead of setting out plans to tackle inequalities in health, they hid the information that revealed that such inequalities existed. It was astonishing to hear talk about the "dispossessed" tonight.
When we were elected, we set about tackling the problems. The Bill is a vital part of our modernisation programme, although it is only a part. It introduces the legislative changes that are needed to carry through reforms that are already under way. With the support of general practitioners, nurses and other health professionals, we have already established 481 primary care groups, and the largest hospital building programme in the history of the NHS is in progress. We have also invested a further £2 billion in the NHS, which will receive an extra £21 billion announced in the comprehensive spending review, which will flow over the next three years. Under existing legislation, we have established the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. NHS Direct already covers 40 per cent. of the country, and an extra 2,500 nurses are already in training.
Throughout those changes, we have worked—as we promised we would—with the NHS, with its users, with carers, with professional bodies and with others. They have helped to shape what we have done, and the way in which we have done it. That is why our reforms have been so widely welcomed—why they are seen so clearly as working with the grain of what the NHS, the staff who deliver the service and the public who rely on it want. Their views have shaped the Bill.
Not everything that we want to do can be done under existing legislation. In key areas—in primary care, in quality, including self-regulation, in partnership, in pharmaceuticals and in the tackling of fraud, the Bill provides a legal framework to complete the modernisation of the NHS on which we have already embarked. That framework will put doctors and nurses in primary care at the heart of the new national health service, with the power and influence to shape and deliver the services that their patients need. It will make possible a new, systematic approach to identify, implement and assure best practice and high clinical standards, and will ensure that each part of the NHS works in partnership with every other part, with local authorities, with voluntary organisations and with local communities to deliver effective services, tackle inequalities in health and improve the health of the public.
The framework will enable us to tackle fraud in the NHS effectively, saving millions of pounds that can be used to treat patients. It will enable us to secure the best deal for patients, the NHS and the pharmaceutical industry from the billions of pounds that the NHS spends on drugs each year.
As for primary care, fundholding is coming to an end, and with that will come an end to the bureaucratic, costly system that fragmented the delivery of services—a system that gave advantages to some patients, but only at the expense of others. The Opposition claim that fundholding was popular; but after years of persuasion and years of generous management allowances, only 50 per cent. of family doctors ever signed up, and many of those did so with real reluctance. Today, only 46 fundholding practices out of 3,400 in England have hung on to fundholding, while 481 primary care groups are up and running.
Primary care groups will bring real benefits to patients. Better services will be available to all people, regardless of who their GPs are or where they happen to live. The transfer of responsibility that we are bringing about is real. I am told that, at the high point, £6 billion of NHS funding had been transferred to the influence of fundholding practices. Already in the current financial year, £11 billion of NHS funding has been transferred to the responsibility of primary care groups, 83 per cent. of which are operating at level two, doing their commissioning directly. That is a real transfer of resources, enabling practitioners in primary care to shape health services in their local areas in the interests of their patients.
Let me deal with the allegations about bureaucracy. We have heard talk of £150 million. That is the amount that it cost to provide the management of fundholding practices; we are using the same amount to provide primary groups that will cover all practices and all patients, right across the country.
After we were elected, we looked at the books and saw that the Conservative party had planned to increase spending on the bureaucracy of fundholding by a further £30 million. We stopped that. We spent £20 million on cancer services and £5 million on children's intensive care services. I believe that patients agree that that was a better way in which to spend that money.
Under our system, doctors will have greater flexibility of referral. There will be an end to the internal market system of extra-contractual referrals, which denied patients and clinicians choice. GPs, nurses and other health professionals will shape health services to the benefit of all patients.
Throughout the country, as we have urged, primary care groups are protecting services that are delivered cost-effectively at practice level, and levelling them up. Three primary care groups in Calderdale, Kirklees have worked together to develop an out-of-hours service in partnership with NHS Direct. In north Cumbria, extending single practice-based vasectomy and ophthalmology services to other practices—[Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) decries those improvements in services. He does it because he has spent all evening claiming that they would not happen, yet, throughout the country, new services are being developed and existing

services that were previously available only to fundholding patients are being made available to all patients. Of course he will heckle: he does not like the early signs of success that are already developing with our reforms.

Mr. Duncan: Two weeks.

Mr. Denham: The hon. Gentleman is right; it is only the first two weeks. There is much more to come.

Dr. Harris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Denham: No. I have no time.

Some primary care groups—perhaps, in time, many—will want to use the powers in the Bill to go further: to establish primary care trusts that are responsible for almost all the commissioning of health services and, if the case is right, to deliver some community health services as well. Primary care trusts will enjoy new powers and freedoms: powers to invest in general practice, in premises and in information systems; to devise their own incentive arrangements, so that there are incentives to develop individual practices as well as the work of the trust itself; to employ staff to support practices in delivering health care; to use the flexibility that is offered by the National Health Service (Primary Care) Act 1997; to develop clinical governance; to continue professional development; and, at the highest level, to provide community health services, not just to commission them. Those are just some of the powers that primary care trusts will be able to develop locally—at a pace that helps to meet local needs, after widespread consultation.

Primary care groups and trusts will help to cut bureaucracy. They will help to ensure that, over the lifetime of the current Parliament, £1 billion that would have been spent on bureaucracy will be spent on patient care, as the number of commissioning bodies is cut from more than 4,000 to fewer than 650 throughout Great Britain.

The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald raised again the tradition during the whole 50 years of the NHS of saying, "The NHS is finished. It cannot cope." She said that that situation had existed from the beginning of the NHS. That is true: there have always been those who have decried the national health system. Fortunately, they have not been listened to and they will not be listened to today. If they had been listened to, the NHS would have been destroyed.

Question put, That the amendment be made: —

The House divided: Ayes 127, Noes 368.

Division No. 141]
[9.59 pm


AYES


Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)
Brooke, Rt Hon Peter


Amess, David
Browning, Mrs Angela


Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James
Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)


Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)
Burns, Simon


Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)
Butterfill, John


Baldry, Tony
Cash, William


Bercow, John
Chapman, Sir Sydney


Blunt, Crispin
(Chipping Barnet)


Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)
Chope, Christopher


Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia
Clappison, James


Brady, Graham
Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Kensington)


Brazier, Julian
Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)







Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth
McLocughlin, Patrick


(Rushcliffe)
Malins, Humfrey


Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey
Maples, John


Collins, Tim
Mates, Michael


Colvin, Michael
Moss, Malcolm


Cormack, Sir Patrick
Nicholls, Patrick


Cran, James
Ottaway, Richard


Davies, Quentin (Grantham)
Page, Richard


Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice
Paice, James


& Howden)
Paterson, Owen


Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen
Pickles, Eric


Duncan, Alan
Randall, John


Duncan Smith, lain
Redwood, Rt Hon John


Evans, Nigel
Robathan, Andrew


Faber, David
Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)


Fabricant, Michael
Ross, William (E Lond'y)


Fallon, Michael
Rowe, Andrew(Feversham)


Flight, Howard
Ruffley, David


Forth, Rt Hon Eric
Sayeed, Jonathan


Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman
Shepherd, Richard


Fox, Dr Liam
Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)


Garnier, Edward
Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)


Gibb, Nick
Soames, Nicholas


Gill, Christopher
Spelman, Mrs Caroline


Gillan, Mrs Cheryl
Spicer, Sir Michael


Gorman, Mrs Teresa
Spring, Richard


Green, Damian
Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John


Greenway, John
Steen, Anthonty


Grieve. Dominic
Streeter, Gary


Hammond, Philip
Sawyne, Desmond


Hawkins, Nick
Syms, Robert


Heald, Oliver
Tapsell, Sir Peter


Heathcoat—Amory, Rt Hon David
Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)


Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael
Taylor, John M (Solihull)


Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas
Taylor, Sir Teddy


Horam, John
Trend, Michael


Hunter, Andrew
Tyrie, Andrew


Jack, Rt Hon Michael
Viggers, Peter


Jenkin, Bernard
Walter, Robert


King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)
Wardle, Charles


Kirkbride, Miss Julie
Waterson, Nigel


Lait, Mrs Jacqui
Wells, Bowen


Lansley, Andrew
Whitney, Sir Raymond


Leigh, Edward
Whittingdale, John


Letwin, Oliver
Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann


Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)
Wilkinson, John


Lidington, David
Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)


Lilley, Rt Hon Peter
Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)


Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)
Woodward, Shaun


Loughton, Tim
Yeo, Tim


Luff, Peter
Young, Rt Hon Sir George


Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas



MacGregor, Rt Hon John
Tellers for the Ayes:


MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew
Mrs. Eleanor Laing and


Maclean, Rt Hon David
Mr. Stephen Day




NOES


Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)
Beith, Rt Hon A J


Allan, Richard
Bell, Martin (Tatton)


Allen, Graham
Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)


Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)
Bennett, Andrew F


Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)
Bermingham, Gerald


Armstrong, Ms Hilary
Berry, Roger


Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy
Best, Harold


Ashton, Joe
Blackman, Liz


Atherton, Ms Candy
Blears, Ms Hazel


Atkins, Charlotte
Blizzard, Bob


Austin, John
Borrow, David


Baker, Norman
Bradley, Keith (Withington)


Ballard, Jackie
Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)


Banks, Tony
Brand, Dr Peter


Barnes, Harry
Breed, Colin


Barron, Kevin
Brinton, Mrs Helen


Bayley, Hugh
Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)


Beard, Nigel
Brown, Russell (Dumfries)


Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret
Buck, Ms Karen





Burden, Richard
Foster, Rt Hon Derek


Burgon, Colin
Foster, Don (Bath)


Burstow, Paul
Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)


Butler, Mrs Christine
Foster, Michael J (Worcester)


Cable, Dr Vincent
Foulkes, George


Caborn, Richard
Fyfe, Maria


Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)
Galloway, George


Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)
Gapes, Mike


Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies
Gardiner, Barry


(NE Fife)
George, Andrew (St Ives)


Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)
George, Bruce (Walsall S)


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Gerrard, Neil


Cann, Jamie
Gibson, Dr Ian


Caplin, Ivor
Gilroy, Mrs Linda


Casale, Roger
Godman, Dr Norman A


Caton, Martin
Godsiff, Roger


Cawsey, Ian
Goggins, Paul


Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)
Golding, Mrs Llin


Chaytor, David
Gordon, Mrs Eileen


Clapham, Michael
Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)


Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)
Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)


Clark, Dr Lynda
Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)


(Edinburgh Pentlands)
Grocott, Bruce


Clark, Paul (Gillingham)
Grogan, John


Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)
Gunnell, John


Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)
Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)


Clelland, David
Hall, Patrick (Bedford)


Coaker, Vernon
Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)


Coffey, Ms Ann
Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet


Cohen, Harry
Harris, Dr Evan


Coleman, lain
Harvey, Nick


Colman, Tony
Heal, Mrs Sylvia


Connarty, Michael
Healey, John


Cook, Frank (Stockton N)
Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)


Corbett, Robin
Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)


Corbyn, Jeremy
Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)


Cotter, Brian
Hepburn, Stephen


Cousins, Jim
Heppell, John


Cranston, Ross
Hesford, Stephen


Crausby, David
Hewitt, Ms Patricia


Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)
Hill, Keith


Cryer, John (Hornchurch)
Hinchliffe, David


Cummings, John
Hodge, Ms Margaret


Cunliffe, Lawrence
Hoey, Kate


Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack
Hood, Jimmy


(Copeland)
Hoon, Geoffrey


Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)
Hope, Phil


Curtis—Thomas, Mrs Claire
Hopkins, Kelvin


Dafis, Cynog
Howarth, Alan (Newport E)


Dalyell, Tam
Howarth, George (Knowsley N)


Darvill, Keith
Howells, Dr Kim


Davey, Edward (Kingston)
Hoyle, Lindsay


Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)
Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)


Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)


Dawson, Hilton
Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)


Dean, Mrs Janet
Humble, Mrs Joan


Denham, John
Hurst, Alan


Dismore, Andrew
Hutton, John


Dobbin, Jim
Iddon, Dr Brian


Dobson, Rt Hon Frank
Illsley, Eric


Donohoe, Brian H
Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)


Doran, Frank
Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)


Drown, Ms Julia
Jamieson, David


Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Jenkins, Brian


Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)
Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)


Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)
Johnson, Miss Melanie


Edwards, Huw
(Welwyn Hatfield)


Efford, Clive
Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)


Ellman, Mrs Louise
Jones, Helen (Warrington N)


Ennis, Jeff
Jones Ms Jenny


Etherington, Bill
(Wolverh'ton SW)


Ewing, Mrs Margaret
Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)


Field, Rt Hon Frank
Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)


Fitzpatrick, Jim
Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa


Flint, Caroline
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald


Follett, Barbara
Keeble, Ms Sally






Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)
Pickthall, Colin


Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)
Pike, Peter L


Keetch, Paul
Plaskitt, James


Kemp, Fraser
Pollard, Kerry


Kennedy, Charles (Ross Skye)
Pope, Greg


Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)
Pound, Stephen


Khabra, Piara S
Powell, Sir Raymond


Kidney, David
Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)


King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)
Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)


Kingham, Ms Tess
Primarolo, Dawn


Kirkwood, Archy
Prosser, Gwyn


Kumar, Dr Ashok
Purchase, Ken


Ladyman, Dr Stephen
Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce


Lawrence, Ms Jackie
Quinn, Lawrie


Laxton, Bob
Radice, Giles


Lepper, David
Rammell, Bill


Leslie, Christopher
Raynsford, Nick


Levitt, Tom
Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)


Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)
Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)


Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen
Rendel, David


Linton, Martin
Robertson, Rt Hon George


Livsey, Richard
(Hamilton S)


Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)
Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)


Llwyd, Elfyn

Roche, Mrs Barbara


Lock, David
Rogers, Allan


McAvoy, Thomas
Rooker, Jeff


McCabe, Steve
Rooney, Terry


McCafferty, Ms Chris
Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)


McDonagh, Siobhain
Roy, Frank


McDonnell, John
Ruane, Chris


McIsaac, Shona
Ruddock, Joan


McKenna, Mrs Rosemary
Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)


Mackinlay, Andrew
Ryan, Ms Joan


McNamara, Kevin
Salter, Martin


McNulty, Tony
Sanders, Adrian


MacShane, Denis
Sawford, Phil


Mactaggart, Fiona
Sedgemore, Brian


McWalter, Tony
Shaw, Jonathan


McWilliam, John
Sheerman, Barry


Mahon, Mrs Alice
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert


Mallaber, Judy
Shipley, Ms Debra


Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter
Short, Rt Hon Clare


Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)
Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)


Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Singh, Marsha


Marshall-Andrews, Robert
Skinner, Dennis


Martlew, Eric
Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)


Maxton, John
Smith, Angela (Basildon)


Meacher, Rt Hon Michael
Smith, Miss Geraldine


Merron, Gillian
(Morecambe & Lunesdale)


Michie, Bill (Shefld Heeley)
Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)


Miller, Andrew
Smith, John (Glamorgan)


Mitchell, Austin
Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)


Moffatt, Laura
smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)


Moonie, Dr Lewis
Snape, Peter


Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)
Soley, Clive


Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)
Southworth, Ms Helen


Morley, Elliot
Spellar, John


Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)
Squire, Ms Rachel


Mudie, George
Starkey, Dr Phyllis


Mullin, Chris
Steinberg, Gerry


Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)
Stevenson, George


Naysmith, Dr Doug
Stewart, David (Inverness E)


Norris, Dan
Stinchcombe, Paul


Oaten, Mark
Stoate, Dr Howard


O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)
Stott, Roger


O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)
Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin


O'Hara, Eddie
Stringer, Graham


Olner, Bill
Stuart, Ms Gisela


O'Neill, Martin
Stunell, Andrew


Öpik, Lembit
Sutcliffe, Gerry


Organ, Mrs Diana
Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann


Osborne, Ms Sandra
(Dewsbury)


Palmer, Dr Nick
Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)


Pearson, Ian
Taylor, David (NW Leics)


Pendry, Tom
Taylor, Matthew (Truro)


Perham, Ms Linda
Temple—Morris, Peter





Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)
White, Brian


Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)
Whitehead, Dr Alan


Timms, Stephen
Wicks, Malcolm


Tipping, Paddy
Williams, Rt Hon Alan


Todd, Mark
(Swansea W)


Tonge, Dr Jenny
Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)


Trickett, Jon
Willis, Phil


Truswell, Paul
Wills, Michael


Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)
Winnick, David


Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)
Wise, Audrey


Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)
Wood, Mike


Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)
Worthington, Tony


Tyler, Paul
Wray, James


Vaz, Keith
Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)


Walley, Ms Joan
Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)


Ward, Ms Claire
Wyatt, Derek


Wareing, Robert N
Tellers for the Noes:


Watts, David
Mr. Jim Dowd and


Webb, Steve
Mr. Clive Betts.

Question accordingly negatived.

Main Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 62 (Amendment on Second or Third Reading):—

The House divided: Ayes 333, Noes 134.

Division No. 142]
[10.15 pm


AYES


Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)
Chaytor, David


Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)
Clapham, Michael


Allen, Graham
Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)


Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)
Clark, Dr Lynda


Armstrong, Ms Hilary
(Edinburgh Pentlands)


Atherton, Ms Candy
Clark, Paul (Gillingham)


Atkins, Charlotte
Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)


Austin, John
Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)


Banks, Tony
Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)


Barnes, Harry
Clelland, David


Barron, Kevin
Coaker, Vernon


Bayley, Hugh
Coffey, Ms Ann


Beard, Nigel
Cohen, Harry


Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret
Coleman, Iain


Bell, Martin (Tatton)
Colman, Tony


Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)
Connarty, Michael


Bennett, Andrew F
Corbett, Robin


Bermingham, Gerald
Corbyn, Jeremy


Berry, Roger
Cousins, Jim


Best, Harold
Cranston, Ross


Blackman, Liz
Crasusby, David


Blears, Ms Hazel
Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)


Blizzard, Bob
Cryer, John (Hornchurch)


Borrow, David
Cummings, John


Bradley, Keith(Withington)
Cunliffe, Lawrence


Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)
Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack


Brinton, Mrs Helen
(Copeland)


Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)
Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)


Brown, Russell (Dumfries)
Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire


Buck, Ms Karen
Dalyell, Tam


Burden, Richard
Darvill, Keith


Burgon, Colin
Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)


Butler, Mrs Christine
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)


Caborn, Richard
Dawson, Hilton


Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)
Dean, Mrs Janet


Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)
Denham, John


Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)
Dismore, Andrew


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Dobbin, Jim


Cann, Jamie
Dobson, Rt Hon Frank


Caplin Ivor
Donohoe, Brian H


Casale, Roger
Doran, Frank


Caton, Martin
Drown, Ms Julia


Cawsay, Ian
Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth


Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)
Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)






Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)
Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)


Edwards, Huw
Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)


Efford, Clive
Jowell, RT Hon Ms Tessa


Ellman, Mrs Louise
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald


Ennis, Jeff
Keeble, Ms Sally


Etherington, Bill
Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)


Ewing, Mrs Margaret
Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)


Field, Rt Hon Frank
Kemp, Fraser


Fitzpatrick, Jim
Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)


Flint, Caroline
Khabra, Piara S


Follett, Barbara
Kidney, David


Foster, Rt Hon Derek
King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)


Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)
Kingham, Ms Tess


Foster, Michael J (Worcester)
Kumar, Dr Ashok


Foulkes, George
Ladyman, Dr Stephen


Fyfe, Maria
Lawrence, Ms Jackie


Galloway, George
Laxton, Bob


Gapes, Mike
Lepper, David


Gardiner, Barry
Leslie, Christopher


George, Bruce (Walsall S)
Levitt, Tom


Gerrard, Neil
Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)


Gibson, Dr Ian
Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen


Gilroy, Mrs Linda
Linton, Martin


Godman, Dr Norman A
Lloyd, Tony
(Manchester C)


Godsiff, Roger
Llwyd, Elfyn


Goggins, Paul
Lock, David


Golding, Mrs Llin
McAvoy, Thomas


Gordon, Mrs Eileen
McCafferty, Ms Chris


Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)
McCartney, Ian (Makerfield)


Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
McDonagh, Siobhain


Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
McDonnell, John


Grocott, Bruce
Mclsaac, Shona


Grogan, John
McKenna, Mrs Rosemary


Gunnell, John
Mackinlay, Andrew


Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)
McNamara, Kevin


Hall, Patrick (Bedford)
McNulty, Tony


Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)
MacShane, Denis


Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet
Mactaggart, Fiona


Heal, Mrs Sylvia
McWalter, Tony


Healey, John
McWilliam, John


Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)
Mahon, Mrs Alice


Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)
Mallaber, Judy


Hepburn, Stephen
Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter


Heppell, John
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)


Hesford, Stephen
Marshall—Andrews, Robert


Hewitt, Ms Patricia
Martlew, Eric


Hill, Keith
Maxton, John


Hinchliffe, David
Meacher, Rt Hon Michael


Hodge, Ms Margaret
Meale, Alan


Hoey, Kate
Merron, Gillian


Hood, Jimmy
Michie, Bill (Shefld Heeley)


Hoon, Geoffrey
Miller, Andrew


Hope, Phil
Mitchell, Austin


Hopkins, Kelvin
Moffatt, Laura


Howarth, Alan (Newport E)
Moonie, Dr Lewis


Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)


Howells, Dr Kim
Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)


Hoyle, Lindsay
Morley, Elliot


Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)
Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)


Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)
Mudie, George


Humble, Mrs Joan
Mullin, Chris


Hurst, Alan
Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)


Hutton, John
Naysmith, Dr Doug


Iddon, Dr Brian
Norris, Dan


Illsley, Eric
O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)


Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)
O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)


Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)
O'Hara, Eddie


Jamieson, David
Olner, Bill


Jenkins, Brian
O'Neill, Martin


Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)
Organ, Mrs Diana


Johnson, Miss Melanie



(Welwyn Hatfield)
Osborne, Ms Sandra


Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)
Palmer, Dr Nick


Jones, Helen (Warrington N)
Pearson, Ian


Jones, Ms Jenny
Pendry, Tom


(Wolverh'ton SW)
Perham, Ms Linda





Pickthall, Colin
Spellar, John


Pike, Peter L
Squire, Ms Rachel


Plaskitt, James
Starkey, Dr Phyllis


Pollard, Kerry
Steinberg, Gerry


Pope, Greg
Stevenson, George


Pound, Stephen
Stewart, David (Inverness E)


Powell, Sir Raymond
Stinchcombe, Paul


Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)
Stoate, Dr Howard


Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)
Stott, Roger


Primarolo, Dawn
Strang, Rt Hon De Gavin


Prosser, Gwyn
Stringer, Graham


Purchase, Ken
Stuart, Ms Gisela


Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce
Sutcliffe, Gerry


Quinn, Lawrie
Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann


Radice, Giles
(Dewsbury)


Rammell, Bill
Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)


Raynsford, Nick
Taylor, David (NW Leics)


Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)
Temple—Morris, Peter


Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)
Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)


Robertson, Rt Hon George
Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)


(Hamilton S)
Timms, stephen


Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)
Tipping, Paddy


Roche, Mrs Barbara
Todd, Mark


Rooker, Jeff
Trickett, Jon


Rooney, Terry
Truswell, Paul


Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)
Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)



Roy, Frank
Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)


Ruane, Chris
Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)


Ruddock, Joan
Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)


Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)
Vaz, Keith


Ryan, Ms Joan
Walley, Ms Joan


Salter, Martin
Ward, Ms Claire


Sawford, Phil
Wareing, Robert N



Sedgemore, Brian
Watts, David


Shaw, Jonathan
White, Brian


Sheerman, Barry
Whitehead, Dr Alan


Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
Wicks, Malcolm


Shipley, Ms Debra
Williams, Rt Hon Alan


Short, Rt Hon Clare
(Swansea W)


Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)
Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)


Singh, Marsha
Wills, Michael


Skinner, Dennis
Winnick, David


Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)
Wise, Audrey


Smith, Angela (Basildon)
Wood, Mike


Smith, Miss Geraldine
Worthington, Tony


(Morecambe & Lunesdale)
Wray, James


Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)
Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)


Smith, John (Glamorgan)
Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)


Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)
Wyatt, Derek


Snape, Peter
Tellers for the Ayes:


Soley, Clive
Mr. Jim Dowd and


Southworth, Ms Helen
Mr. Clive Betts.




NOES


Ainsworth,Peter (E Surrey)
Burstow, Paul


Allan, Richard
Cable, Dr Vincent


Amess David
Campbell, RT Hon Menzies


Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James
(NE Fife)


Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy



Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)
Cash, William


Atkinsone, Peter (Haxham)
Chapman, Sir Sydney


Baker, Norman
(Chipping Barnet)


Ballard, Jakie
Chope, Christopher


Beith, Rt Hon A J
Clappison, James


Bercow, John
Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Kensington)


Blunt, Crispin
Clifton—Brown, Geoffrey


Bottomley, Peter
Collins, Tim


Brady, Graham
Colvin, Michael


Brand, Dr Peter
Cotter, Brian


Breed, Colin
Cran, James


Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Davey, Edward (Kingston)


Browning, Mrs Angela
Davies, Quentin (Grantham)


Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)
Day, Stephen


Burns, Simon
Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen


Duncan, Alan


Duncan Smith, Iain






Evans, Nigel
Luff, Peter


Faber, David
Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas


Fabricant, Michael
MacGregor, Rt Hon John


Flight, Howard
Maclean, Rt Hon David


Foster, Don (Bath)
McLoughlin, Patrick


Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman
Mates, Michael


Fox, Dr Liam
Nicholls, Patrick


Garnier, Edward
Oaten, Mark


George, Andrew (St Ives)
Öpik, Lembit


Gibb, Nick
Ottaway, Richard
Page, Richard


Gill, Christopher
Paice, James


Gorman, Mrs Teresa
Paterson, Owen


Green, Damian
Pickles, Eric


Greenway, John
Randall, John


Hammond, Philip
Redwood, Rt Hon John


Harris, Dr Evan
Rendel, David


Harvey, Nick
Robertson. Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)


Hawkins, Nick
Ruffley, David


Heald, Oliver
Sayeed, Jonathan


Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)
Shepherd, Richard


Heathcoat—Amory, Rt Hon David
Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)


Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael
Spelman, Mrs Caroline


Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas
Spicer, Sir Michael


Horarn, John
Spring, Richard


Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)
Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John


Hunter, Andrew
Steen, Anthony


Jack, Rt Hon Michael
Swayne, Desmond


Jackson, Robert (Wantage)
Syms, Robert


Jenkin, Bernard
Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)


Keetch, Paul
Taylor, John M (Solihull)


Kennedy, Charles (Ross Skye)
Taylor, Matthew (Truro)


King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)
Taylor, Sir Teddy


Kirkwood, Archy
Tonge, Dr Jenny


Laing, Mrs Eleanor
Tyler, Paul


Lait, Mrs Jacqui
Tyrie, Andrew


Lansley, Andrew
Viggers, Peter


Leigh, Edward
Walter, Robert


Letwin, Oliver
Wardle, Charles


Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)
Waterson, Nigel


Lidington, David
Webb, Steve


Lilley, Rt Hon Peter
Whitney, Sir Raymond


Livsey, Richard
Whittingdale, John


Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)
Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann


Loughton, Tim






Wilkinson, John
Yeo, Tim


Willis, Phil


Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)
Tellers for the Noes:


Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)
Mr. Andrew Stunell and


Woodward, Shaun
Mr. Adrian Sanders.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of Bills).

Orders of the Day — HEALTH BILL [LORDS] [MONEY]

Queen's recommendation having been signified—

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Health Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise—

(a) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

(i) any expenditure incurred by a Minister of the Crown under the Act,
(ii) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other enactment,

(b) the conversion into public dividend capital of any amount outstanding by way of initial loan forming part of an NHS trust's originating capital debt.—[Mr. Hill.]

Question agreed to.

Orders of the Day — HEALTH BILL [LORDS] [WAYS AND MEANS]

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Health Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the imposition of charges in respect of expenditure incurred by the Commission for Health Improvement.—[Mr. Hill.]

Question agreed to.

Orders of the Day — Prescriptions

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hill.]

Dr. Stephen Ladyman: I do not know whether it is a good or a bad thing that the Adjournment immediately follows the Second Reading of the Health Bill. My hon. Friend the Minister has had to work doubly hard tonight, but at least he has not had to break up two evenings. As I was in Committee this evening, I was unable to listen to the Second Reading; I hope not to cover the same ground but if I do so, I apologise to the House.
The national health service drugs bill is rising; in my opinion, it is rising inexorably, but, also in my opinion, that is not a bad thing. Drugs can be extremely cost effective. A drug that keeps someone out of hospital can make a saving for the NHS. A medicine that gets someone back to work quickly can have a beneficial effect on the economy. New drugs are becoming more efficient all the time and are starting to deal with conditions that we were previously unable to treat. The pharmaceutical industry is a big contributor to the national economy and is an industry that we should be trying to support. My purpose tonight is try to convince my hon. Friend—if he needed to be convinced—of those matters and to suggest some ways in which we could try to think about meeting the rising drugs bill that we shall face in coming years.
The Government have already made a huge start: an extra £19 billion will be available for the NHS in the next three years. That money will help to modernise the service. It will make more services available, and some of it will go towards meeting the cost of the rising drugs budget. However, in my view, it will be insufficient.
In recent weeks we have engaged in debates on this subject; we have increasingly heard the Conservatives start to answer some of the questions that perhaps they did not fully address during their 18 years in government. Unfortunately, the answers that they have given to those questions tend to be right-wing ones that advocate more private practice and more private medicine. I do not believe that those answers are in line with the principles of the NHS. The Liberal Democrats have also acknowledged the rising drugs bill, but yet again they seem to think that their magic penny on income tax will address all the problems.
I am loth to suggest that what I offer tonight is a third way, because the boss—my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—has already copyrighted that particular phrase. I will, however, offer a basis for debate that is in line with the principles of the NHS and that will help us to address the issues.
My constituency includes Pfizer, a large and successful pharmaceutical company that employs 3,500 people there. When its current building programme is complete, it will employ 1,000 more. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and I are working hard to encourage the company to make further investments, and we are hopeful that it will do so. However, the company, like other pharmaceutical firms, is beginning to feel underappreciated.
Some reasons for that have been inherited by the Labour Government, including the limited prescribing list and the problems of parallel importing that still have not
been fully dealt with. Equally, however, Pfizer feels underappreciated because it is difficult to see effects such as the outcome generated by a medicine taken into consideration when pricing is considered. The company also fears that the National Institute for Clinical Excellence will focus on driving down the drugs bill rather than on outcomes and cost effectiveness.
The industry is also worried about changes in the pharmaceutical price regulation scheme, although it has been reassured by recent statements that the new agreement would be introduced after full discussion and, as far as possible, on a voluntary basis.
I reject some of the fears that have been expressed, but I must recognise that those fears exist, and, as a constituency Member, I must reflect them fairly. Of even more concern, however, are the needs of individual constituents such as Mrs. Noreen Heffer of Ramsgate and Ms Lesley Jordan of Sandwich, who have been diagnosed as suffering from multiple sclerosis and who would benefit from beta interferon treatment, which they currently cannot receive.
The reason for that is complex. As best as I can piece the story together, there was an accord in east Kent on who could appropriately receive the drug and who could not. The accord broke down, and too many people were put on the treatment, for some of whom it was not suitable. Once the health authority recognised that there was a problem, consultants got together to agree new prescribing guidelines and to start to review the cases of people on beta interferon. While the list is being reviewed, and while people for whom the treatment is not appropriate are weaned off it, Mrs. Heffer and Ms Jordan have to wait.
The health authority has increased its budget to £325,000, which is large for an authority of its size. Although I can give my two constituents a good explanation for what has happened, all they want to hear is that beta interferon is available so that they can begin their treatment. How can we make such treatments available?
We must remember that if expensive drugs are made available, there will be an impact on drugs budgets.
Another constituent's wife was diagnosed as suitable for Aricept treatment at a time when it was not available in my constituency. By the time it became available, her condition had deteriorated to the point at which the treatment was no longer appropriate. An opportunity was missed for that patient.
Many constituents have also come to me because they have erectile dysfunction and wish to receive Viagra. which they cannot receive under current guidelines. They are concerned that they will not receive it either if the preliminary guidelines on which the Government are consulting remain unchanged.

Dr. Evan Harris: I thank the hon. Gentleman for letting me intervene on his thoughtful and remarkably independent-minded speech. Does he agree that the Government's proposal on Viagra, which has just been out to consultation, is a rather irrational way to go about rationing a drug? The proposal would restrict the drug's prescription on the basis of the causes of dysfunction rather than the likely benefit, meaning that many people, particularly older people, simply will not have access to it because the Government
are choosing to limit it. It is welcome that the Government are taking responsibility for rationing, but that is an irrational way to do it.

Dr. Ladyman: I largely agree with the hon. Gentleman; I have concerns about the rationality of the drug's availability being limited by the cause of the underlying condition. But even on that basis the principle behind the guidelines appears to be that erectile dysfunction has an underlying psychological cause, whereas it is now clear that there is usually an organic condition behind it—for example, diabetes, hypertension, post myocardial infarction, arteriosclerosis, stroke, renal disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, pelvic injury, prostate resection, radical prostatectomy and pelvic radiotherapy are all major causes of erectile dysfunction.
Erectile dysfunction is an extremely distressing condition, and I think that men who suffer from it are entitled to have the entirety of their condition treated. If one is treating renal disease, surely one should also treat the conditions that renal disease causes, which might include impotence. The prescribing guidelines should reflect that.
In fairness, I should state that Viagra is a Pfizer drug, so that is another constituency concern. I should also point out to the Minister that Pfizer has estimated that Viagra would cost only about £50 million if it were freely available on the NHS. That is far less than some of the figures that were put about a year ago when the debate first took off. Viagra is actually quite a cost-effective treatment. It would cost only about £19 a month under the current pricing guidelines, which is far less than the monthly cost of an antacid treatment.
If the Minister feels that he needs to limit the availability of Viagra in case the bill gets out of control, I suggest that he challenges Pfizer to cap the cost of Viagra at £50 million; if more than £50 million worth is required, he should suggest that Pfizer should provide it for free. I think that Pfizer might enter negotiations on that basis. The Minister might be pleasantly surprised—he should at least have a go. If he does not think that he has the power to do so, today's Second Reading of the Health Bill revealed that clauses 30 and 31 give him the power, even if he does not have it at the moment.
Finally on behalf of my constituents, I have a further concern that men's health issues are generally downgraded and not given the consideration that they should be. With Lord Jopling, I recently helped to host a meeting in the Houses of Parliament with Senator Bob Dole. I do not share Senator Dole's political philosophy, but he has been campaigning in America for increased prostate cancer treatment and screening. We should be taking up that issue in this country, but I accept that if we did, it would also greatly increase the drugs budget.
I am asking the Minister for fair treatment for pharmaceutical companies, for novel treatments such as Viagra and Aricept to become freely available, and for expensive drugs like beta interferon to become freely available. All these will increase the pressure on the drugs bill. Although the National Institute for Clinical Excellence is a very good start and will clearly consider cost-effectiveness, it alone will not hold back the flood waters of increased drug prices.
Therefore the Minister might care to give some thought to my following suggestions. He could switch as many drugs as possible to over-the-counter availability. If he then changed the way in which pharmacists were remunerated to encourage them to have private rooms where they could advise customers on over-the-counter drugs, and if the Government and pharmacists together raised awareness of the benefits of home health care, many of the treatments that currently have to be prescribed by GPs could be sold over the counter. That would also keep people out of GPs' surgeries, thus reducing another burden on the NHS.
The Minister should change the way in which drugs are priced to reflect outcomes, and do so in such a way that the saving made by a medicine keeping somebody out of a hospital bed is reflected in the drugs budget. The drugs budget can then be allocated the resources needed to exploit to the full the potential of medicines.
Even those things would not be sufficient for the increase in the drugs bill for which we must gear ourselves up. So, I shall make one further slightly more radical suggestion for the Minister to consider. Currently, the NHS prescription bill—based on an answer that his predecessor, my hon Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), gave me in April last year—is £4.5 billion a year, of which we raise only £300 million through prescription charges. We can either fund the increased drugs budget through the money made available under the comprehensive spending review or in some way increase prescription charges—the money which comes directly from the patients. That is where the Minister should be looking.
The Government have said in the debate on Viagra that the principle behind the NHS is that it should make freely available treatments for life-threatening, painful or disabling conditions. I agree; drugs for such treatment should be freely available to everybody irrespective of income. But, those represent only half of the current drugs budget. The other half need not necessarily be freely available to everybody. Drugs that deal with trivial conditions and conditions which get better on their own should be charged at the market rate to everybody, also irrespective of income.
In the middle, there is a group of drugs which deal with serious conditions—I would include Viagra in that category—and should be freely available only to people who are on low incomes. Others should pay for them at the market rate. By doing that, we would create a market in such drugs; competition might force the price down. We would also generate private medical insurance schemes to help people who want to take such an option. Such an approach would be true to the principle of the NHS that life-threatening and disabling illnesses would be freely treated and that pain relief would be freely available to all.
In case the Minister doubts whether there is room in the budget for such an approach, I shall give him a few examples of drugs in the middle category. Dermatological products cost £246 million, non-serious use of antiulcerants costs £300 million, anti-diarrhoeals cost £67 million, laxatives £71 million, tropical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs £35 million, drugs for hay fever £34 million, contraceptive pills—slightly more controversial in such a category—£58 million, hormone


replacement therapy £138 million, oral nutrition drugs £85 million, food for special diets £29 million and vitamins £12 million.
That is a list of £1,075 million-worth of drugs that do not deal with life-threatening, disabling or painful conditions. If the NHS were not paying for just a fraction of, say, non-serious use of anti-ulcerants, my constituents could get their beta interferon and Aricept. Those drugs should be freely available to people who need them.
Does the Minister agree that the drugs bill will inevitably rise over the next few years? How will he stem or meet that rise? Will he consider my suggestions? When will the Viagra consultation process be reported on? Will he give thought to increasing the availability of drugs over the counter and through home health care measures? If he will give those suggestions some serious consideration, this debate will have been well worth while.

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) on his success in securing the debate. I understand the importance of the topic to his constituents, many of whom are employed by Pfizer, which is of course the manufacturer of Viagra, among many other important products. That drug has produced more comment and opinion than perhaps any new drug in living memory. I shall return to it in a moment.
As a Government, we do fully accept the importance of the United Kingdom pharmaceutical industry to this country. Only last week, at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry annual dinner, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State described the industry as "quite brilliant". The Government unequivocally support the industry.
The Department of Health is responsible within Government for policy in relation to NHS purchase and the use of pharmaceuticals, and for policies designed to create the right competitive environment in which the UK pharmaceutical industry can continue to flourish and compete in the global market. Those two aims are not at odds. We recognise that the industry's present success was hard won. In the face of globalisation and increased competition, the industry must be at the forefront of innovation and competitiveness if that success is to be sustained. Nothing that we are doing threatens that success—rather the opposite.
The principal objective of recent developments, such as the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, is to enable faster and more equitable access to innovation, and to ensure that resources are used cost-effectively. Clinicians encounter more and more new products—the pace of change is quickening. The setting up of NICE recognises the need for machinery to provide authoritative guidance, and the industry has expressed support for the broad objectives of NICE. The Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry and the Association of the British Health Care Industry will be represented on the partners' council, which will oversee NICE' s work programme and ensure fair play in its working methods.
We have made it clear that if medicines are shown to be more clinically and cost effective than other treatments, that is how the money should be spent. Unified budgets will facilitate that. There is no cap on the drugs budget. The introduction of unified budgets creates a single

funding stream for three components of expenditure—hospital and community health services, prescribing, and GP practice infrastructure—which were previously managed separately, under differing rules, by different parts of the NHS.

Mr. Philip Hammond: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Denham: In fairness to my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet, I think I should try to answer as many of his points as possible.
Those three components have been combined into a single pot at health authority and primary care group level. That level will depend on the clinical priorities that health authorities and primary care groups set themselves. Unified budgets will create a flexible environment, which will help to ensure that patients get the most appropriate treatment for their condition.
It is not true to say that the Government are unwilling to allow for the full cost of treatment when assessing the price of medicines. Under the NICE appraisal system, companies will be free to submit any relevant data, with the core of NICE' s appraisal focusing on the health benefits achievable from NHS budgets—including hospital beds and staff, not just the cost of drugs.
We continue to work closely with industry. For example, the industry strategy group, which includes senior industry representatives and Department of Health, Department of Trade and Industry and Treasury officials, meets every quarter to discuss a range of issues. The industry has praised Government for their handling of the debate on the development of the single market in pharmaceuticals during our presidency last year, and subsequently the ISG and other bilateral contacts provide forums for discussion of NHS policies as they affect the pharmaceutical industry and other relevant Government policies. One of these is the parallel import of pharmaceuticals into the UK. Government has an on-going and constructive dialogue with the industry on that issue. Internationally, the ISG is seen as a unique forum for Government-industry debate.
As a discerning home customer, the Government are determined to secure value for money for the national health service. The clinically and cost effective use of pharmaceuticals helps to stimulate UK industrial competitiveness; it does not undermine it.
We do want to reach a voluntary agreement on the pharmaceutical price regulation scheme, but the Health Bill will enable us to back it by statute if necessary. Above all, the PPRS—voluntary or backed by statute—has, and will continue to have, the joint aims of fair prices for the NHS which represent good value for money, and fair prices or profits on NHS sales for the industry which represent a reasonable return on the enormous investment that goes into pharmaceutical research and development and of course helps to fund future R and D.
This remains a very good country in which to invest in pharmaceuticals: it has lower costs, labour flexibility, good industrial relations, a strong science and skills base, a strong cluster of existing industry, low corporation tax, political and social stability and an excellent regulatory regime.
I said that I would return to the topic of Viagra. Impotence is in itself not life-threatening and does not cause physical pain. It can, in exceptional circumstances,
cause psychological distress. Until the advent of Viagra, NHS expenditure on this condition has been limited because of the nature of the treatments available. Now that treatment is available in tablet form, the cost of treating impotence could escalate. To limit that impact, we propose controls that reflect the priority given to treatment for impotence and reflect current expenditure on it.
Briefly, it is proposed that Viagra and other drug treatments for impotence would be available on prescription from GPs for the following groups of men: those who have had radical pelvic surgery or their prostate removed; those suffering from spinal cord injury; diabetics; multiple sclerosis sufferers and those who have single gene neurological disease. Treatment would also be available for other men adjudged by a hospital specialist to be suffering from severe distress. General practitioners would be able to prescribe privately to impotent men not suffering from one of the named conditions.
The period of consultation ended on 25 March and work is now under way to collate the responses. That is likely to be a considerable task as there are about 850 of them. Even at this initial stage, it is clear that the widest possible range of views has been expressed to us. I should make it clear that no final decisions will be taken until we have had the opportunity to consider the range of responses sent in. We will carefully consider all comments that have been received during the consultation period before reaching a final decision. We shall also keep the issue under review once final policies are in place. We have to find a sensible balance between treating men with a distressing condition and protecting the resources of the NHS to deal with other patients with, for example, cancer, heart disease and mental health problems.
All health authorities were issued in 1995 with guidance that covered the use of beta interferon for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. It recommended that prescribing should be initiated by hospital specialists where clinically appropriate. The costs of prescribing are expected to be met within health authority allocations, taking account of local priorities.
However, we should be clear that there are continuing questions about the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of beta interferon, the benefits achieved, which patients will benefit and for how long, and how the benefits compare with those of supporting patients through, for example, specialist nursing care. Health authorities and clinicians rightly take these and other factors into account when they set local priorities.
We must ensure that clinical and cost-effective treatments are spread through the NHS as quickly as possible, and that is one of the roles of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which will provide clear and authoritative advice on key treatments and procedures. Subject to the outcome of consultation on the discussion document and appraisal by NICE, we are minded to refer beta interferon to the institute.
I should like to take the opportunity to address some of the other specific issues and suggestions that have been

raised and made by my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend suggests that we should switch as many drugs from prescription only to over-the-counter status as can be accommodated safely. The Government encourage wider availability of medicines as soon as there is adequate evidence of safety in use. We have tried and effective mechanisms for processing such switches; indeed, they have formed the model for European-wide switching.
My hon. Friend suggests that greater emphasis should be given to the benefits of home health care. The Government are already doing a great deal to promote self-care. Most significantly, we have set up NHS Direct, the 24-hour nurse-led helpline, which has been a big success, with the first three pilot projects achieving a 97 per cent. satisfaction rating. NHS Direct is helping patients to make better use of the NHS. Many of the callers change their course of behaviour as a result of their calls.
Drawing on the experience of NHS Direct, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced today plans for extending its role in a number of new areas of activity. Among these is the development of NHS Direct as a health promotional tool, and NHS Direct nurses in west Yorkshire are planning to phone people to remind them of their hospital appointments.
We will also be piloting arrangements under which nurses will be able to call older people who come out of hospital to check that they are all right, or work will be done with family health service teams to help to improve the management of chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes. NHS Direct will go on the internet as NHS Direct On-Line, so that the public can consult an interactive guide covering common minor ailments to help them decide when they can look after themselves and when they need to seek professional advice.
National health service direct information points may be placed in surgeries, libraries, pharmacies, post offices, supermarkets, accident and emergency departments and healthy living centres. They will be able to provide internet access to NHS Direct On-Line and phone access to a NHS Direct nurse and information on local health services. We shall publish a NHS Direct health guide to help people care for themselves. These are important developments.
My hon. Friend was right to refer to the role that pharmacists can play in encouraging the effective use of medicines. We are working on a strategy for community pharmacy that will take into account the expertise that pharmacists can bring to the use of medicines.
My hon. Friend made some radical suggestions about prescription charges, including the proposal that they should bring in about three times as much revenue as they do at present. In opposition, we promised to review prescription charges, and that we have done. The current prescription charge exemption arrangements were examined as part of the comprehensive spending review, which reported last year. We looked at a range of options for this Parliament, but concluded that the present charging arrangements should continue: all current prescription charge exemptions would be protected for the rest of this Parliament and existing patient charges would rise by no more than the rate of inflation over the next three years.
I am afraid that nothing my hon. Friend has said tonight has persuaded me that that conclusion was wrong.
There are systems such as my hon. Friend proposes in other parts of Europe. I should say that, where they apply, it is almost always the case that Viagra has been placed not in the intermediate category, as he proposes, but in the category of medicines for which patients have to meet the full cost themselves.
This has been an interesting debate and I am aware that, in the time available, I have not been able to respond—

The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at four minutes to Eleven o'clock.